


The Quiet Season

by avoidingavoidance



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Single Dad Marco, a lot of dead parents, brief alcohol consumption, don't let the summary scare you, tattoo artist/florist au, this is basically a romantic comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 21:10:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5513429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avoidingavoidance/pseuds/avoidingavoidance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things in Jean's tiny tourist hometown get shaken up when the town sweetheart's old flame moves in with her—and so does their six-year-old son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Quiet Season

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Madblippo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madblippo/gifts).



> i have a [tumblr](http://avoidingavoidance.tumblr.com)
> 
> hey there friend, surprise, i'm your secret santa! here have this 25k fic that got totally out of hand and i'm so sorry oh god
> 
> oh also, trost in this is based off a real place i went one time called cannon beach, which is famous for a really big rock on the beach that has birds sometimes

Never let it be said that Jean Kirschtein is anything but fucking horrendous at first impressions. He’s never been good at firsts, and nearly everyone in his small seaside hometown on the far northern end of the tourist-magnet Oregon coast can account for that in some way or another.

The first time he meets Marco Bodt is nothing but par for the course.

Of course, maybe if he hadn’t been blindingly hungover and hunched over the wrong key smashed into the wrong lock when they first met, their first encounter might have gone a little more smoothly.

“Fucking frozen-ass piece of fucking shit,” he snarls at the lock, squinting around a monstrous headache as he struggles harder, the door rattling loudly in its frame.

“Here,” comes a soft, sleepy voice to his left, followed by the jingle of keys. “Maybe try this one.”

Jean peers over at the gloved hand holding up an identical-looking key to his own, then aims a dirty look at the tired smile being beamed down at him. “And why the fuck would that key work?”

“Dunno,” the guy standing beside him says, shrugging lazily. “Because it goes to that door?”

Pausing to scrub one chilly hand down his face, Jean pulls in a deep, irate breath and rips his key out of the stubborn lock so he can turn to the guy and glare at him more effectively. “Listen, asshat,” he begins eloquently, “It is like four hours too early for bullshit of any kind, so if you have literally _anywhere_ else on earth to be, I recommend you get there.”

That smile again, a little more awake now, and with a maddeningly amused crook to one side. “Well, I do sort of have to be behind the door you’re currently mauling, so.”

Jean stares. Loudly. “This is my shop. That I run. Alone.”

The dude squints one eye at him. “Mm, I sort of doubt that,” he says. “I’ve only worked here for a few days, but I’m fairly sure I’ve seen other people hanging around. I mean, unless they were all vivid hallucinations from being so cold. That’s a possibility.” He pauses and taps his chin thoughtfully, his big brown eyes wandering skyward. “Then again, maybe they were just random drifters that all happened to be _really good_ at tattooing. How strange.”

More staring. Another obnoxiously charming smile. Jean closes his eyes slowly, takes another deep breath, then turns to look over his shoulder at the door he’d been harassing.

Now that he’s crawled out of his own aching head somewhat, Jean thinks that maybe this dude has a valid point.

The store Jean had been trying to open is, in fact, not his Eulalie, the flower shop that he runs by himself during the slow winter months. The glass and white wood storefront of the tattoo parlor right next door, though, is an exact mirror image to his own, and if he were to try and say that this was the first time he’d nearly broken into Titan Ink after an extraordinarily late night, he’d be lying about seven times over.

“Oh.”

“Mhm,” the dude replies cheerfully, his hands stuffed deep in his jacket pockets.

“ _Oh,_ ” Jean repeats, burying his face in his hands before taking a step back, closer to his own door. “Oh, shit, okay. Fuck.” He resurfaces, running his hands through his mussed, bleached hair as he steps back again. “Wow, I, uh. Sorry, man. I don’t do well with mornings.”

The dude just laughs, giving a lopsided shrug and flicking his own dark bangs out of his eyes. “Seems no one else in this town does either,” he muses, “I’ve been here almost a week and this is the first time I’ve seen anyone besides schoolkids out before, like, eleven in the morning.”

Jean nods vaguely, then squeezes his eyes shut as he processes what the brunette’s saying. “A week, huh?” He snaps his fingers a few times, trying to get his memory to wake up, then blurts, “ _Oh,_ right, right, you must be that, uh, that portrait artist that just moved here, right? With your little boy? Mina’s guy?” 

The guy hums, his eyebrows raised in surprise, then shoves his hands deeper into his pockets and squints one eye up the street. Or rather, what he can see of it through the dense early-morning fog. “Wow. Word sure travels fast here, huh.” His shoulders are clearly tense, his body language much tighter than it had been up until now, but it passes quickly enough. “Yeah, uh. I’m Marco Bodt,” he says after an awkward moment, turning back to Jean and holding out his hand. “Just moved up from L.A. with my son, Paul. Er, mine and Mina’s. O-our son.”

“Jean Kirschtein.” Shaking briefly, Jean scratches the back of his neck and mumbles, “Sorry for, uh. Your door. And for bitching at you.”

Marco smiles at him, that easy warmth now flooding back into his expression. His sun-dark skin is dotted all over with freckles, dark flecks that stand out even further atop the bright flush brought on by the cold sea air. “I’ll be okay,” Marco laughs. “As long as I get inside soon and blast that heat. I’m seriously dying out here.”

Jean snorts, then spreads his arms and says, “Welcome to Trost in November, man. Probably a little chillier than L.A., huh?”

“Just a bit,” Marco chuckles. He sucks on his lip for a second, then points lamely at the door and mutters, “Well, uh.”

“Oh, right.” Stepping back again, Jean turns to his own shop, flicking his keyring until he finds the right key. This time, the door to the flower shop swings open with significant ease, the quiet squeak of the hinges just adding insult to injury. Marco opens his own door, then aims another crooked smile over at Jean before he shuffles inside and closes the door again, and once he sinks into the dark inside the tattoo parlor, Jean exhales loudly and squeezes his eyes shut with a quiet curse.

He spends the two cold hours before the shop actually opens doing the paperwork he hadn’t felt like doing for the last few days, and the whole time he’s adding and recording and signing, he tries not to think about the lively splash of color Marco makes on the fog-white, unchanging landscape of Jean’s hometown. Thinking like that could only end badly, anyway.

Marco’s cute, sure, and definitely Jean’s type, but everyone in town already knows that he’s Mina’s guy. The little boy he’d come with, _their_ son, is more than enough proof of that.

\--

Even though Marco works right next door to Jean, literally on the other side of a shared wall, Jean’s still surprised when he runs into Marco again just the next day. Mostly because it’s right in the middle of Trost’s dead season, which means days on end without customers for Jean, and because Marco’s presence is announced by the cheery ring of the bell over Eulalie’s front door. 

Jean blinks up at the sound, having been thoroughly slouched over a book at the counter across from the door, and finds Marco looking around the shop and chewing on his thumbnail distractedly.

“Hey, Marco,” he says, quickly standing up and shoving his book under the counter. 

“Oh, hey Jean,” Marco murmurs. He stands up a little straighter, his lips pressed into a thin, grim line, and moves over to a vibrant display of roses, one of Jean’s better works this season. Not like he has a whole lot to work with, between what’s readily in season and what he’s willing to order without many customers to make use of them.

Stuffing his hands into his apron pockets, Jean sucks on his lips and watches Marco amble around the shop for a few minutes, seemingly unable to decide whether he’d rather have his hoodie sleeves pushed up over his tattooed forearms or pulled down around his knuckles. After a while, he starts looking more and more concerned, so Jean slides out from behind the counter and wanders over to him. “Anything I can do for you?” he asks, idly rocking back onto his heels when Marco blinks at him.

“Oh, uh,” Marco replies, pausing to crack his knuckles. “Yeah, actually, um.” He shakes his head, then aims a pleading smile at Jean. “What do you have that says ‘I’m sorry, I messed up and I won’t do it again’?”

Jean raises his eyebrows, but bites his tongue on his curiosity for now, instead pursing his lips and tapping his knuckle against his chin in thought. “Hmm... normally I’d say purple hyacinth, but they’re kind of a pain for me to get out of season. Apparently you’re only allowed to fuck up during the spring.” Marco snorts out a cute laugh at that, his shoulders loosening slightly, both of which are a significantly better look for him than the one he’d come in with. 

Shaking that thought out of his head, Jean turns to survey his admittedly slim stock with a frown. “I think the best I’m gonna have for you right now is a gladiolus bouquet... wait, is this for Mina?” 

He glances back at Marco, whose lips narrow into that thin line again as he nods. 

Jean quirks an eyebrow at him, and when he looks Marco up and down, he honestly doesn’t _mean_ for it to be quite as judgmental as it apparently comes off. Still, Marco shifts awkwardly and rubs the back of his neck, obviously uncomfortable. His squirming does him no favors.

Waving a hand toward the front, Jean sighs, “Why don’t you just get her roses? Mina loves roses.”

“Aren’t roses, uh. Kind of romantic?” Marco asks quietly.

“Well, sometimes...” Turning to face Marco again, Jean tilts his head slightly and crosses his arms, his stern stance unintentionally making Marco even squirmier. “It’s not exactly down-on-your-knees apologetic, but I can do the gladiolus bouquet, if you want that instead.”

“That, um. Sure. That sounds great.”

Jean nods and turns on his heel, turning on the bouquet-making autopilot as he moves to collect the flowers in question. He has a decent amount of them, part of a vibrant, colorful display of gladioli that spans the back wall of the shop during the off season. They’re lovely flowers, made up of soft, pretty blooms arranged in pairs down long, thick stems, and they come in damn near every color imaginable and then some. During the spring and summer, the town plants them along the main street to draw tourists toward the shops on either side, and down the narrow walkways that lead toward the impressively rocky beach for which Trost is famous.

Bending down and grabbing a good-sized bunch of bright red ones, Jean looks them all over closely before he brings them back to his counter, dropping a few that aren’t quite good enough for Mina in a wide trash bucket in the corner. As he’s cutting the stems and arranging the flowers, Marco meanders back over to the counter to watch, once again chewing on his thumbnail.

“So,” Jean says after a minute, once he’s safely put down his intimidatingly large scissors. “What’d you do?”

“Ah, that,” Marco hums, running his hands through his dark hair. “Well, Paul and I are living with her for now, and neither of us are anywhere near used to the layout of her house yet. It’s kinda... well, the bathroom—”

“The bathroom’s, like, halfway under the stairs,” Jean interrupts, throwing Marco a brief, knowing smile. “Her house is weird, yeah.” 

“Oh, you’ve, uh. You’ve been there?”

Jean nods as he crouches to dig around for a suitable paper to wrap the flowers in. “Yeah, I’ve known Mina since we were babies. Loads of people have. We’re one of _those_ small towns, in case you haven’t noticed. Very _Twin Peaks._ ”

The awkward way Marco laughs more than betrays his discomfort at the idea. “I, uh. I have. It’s kinda... I feel like everyone knows all about me, but I don’t know anyone.” Jean hums, standing once more once he’s found the paper he vaguely remembers Mina liking. “A-anyway,” Marco stammers, “Her bathroom is weird, and I got up in the middle of the night last night to pee and sort of. Whacked my head against the, uh, under-stair bit. Pretty hard.” Jean glances up at him then, just noticing the light bruise on Marco’s temple, barely peeking out from under his curly bangs. “And while I was flailing around and making an enormous ass of myself, I knocked over this vase she had on the windowsill, and it broke.”

“Ah, no,” Jean groans, wincing in honest sympathy. “That one was her mom’s favorite. Christ knows why she kept it in the _bathroom_... is she giving you a hard time about it?” Marco wiggles his hand noncommittally, obviously relieved at Jean’s immediate understanding of the situation. Snorting loudly, Jean shakes his head and mumbles, “So she raised hell. Gotcha.”

Marco laughs again, relaxing further. “Only a little. She’s really a very nice girl.”

“As long as she’s had her morning pot of coffee, sure. Well, flowers ought to soothe the savage beast,” Jean hums, carefully tying a ribbon into a tight bow around the long, wrapped stalks of the gladioli, before a thought occurs to him and he looks up at Marco again. “Wait, so are you gonna need these in a vase? Or is she just gonna dump them in one of her mother’s other hideous vases? She has, like, a million to choose from...”

When Marco laughs this time, he politely covers his mouth, but it can’t quite muffle the loud, pretty sound of his voice, and Jean wills himself to focus on tucking a few small packets of flower food under the bouquet’s wrapping before that train of thought can go anywhere dangerous. “I-I think it’ll be okay, yes. Thank you, though,” Marco says finally, breathless with giggles and far too cute for his own good. He tilts his head curiously as he takes in the red flowers, wrapped in red paper and tied with a red ribbon, then asks, “I’m guessing red is her favorite color?”

Jean nods and crosses his arms, trying not to be too intimidating in the way he squints at Marco again. “You have a kid with her, and you don’t know her favorite color? I mean, everything the girl wears is some shade of red.”

The way Marco casts his gaze down immediately makes Jean feel guilty, especially with the slight frown line that crops up between the brunette’s eyebrows, but before he can apologize for prying, Marco sighs slowly and shrugs. “It’s... kind of complicated.”

“Right.” Jean swallows heavily, scratching the back of his head, and finds the decency to avert his gaze as well. “Um. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Marco replies quietly, rubbing the nape of his neck. “Don’t worry about it.” He clears his throat, then pulls his wallet out of his back pocket and asks, “What, uh. What do I owe you?”

Oh. Right. Jean stands up straight and slides over to the aged cash register, adding up the costs in his head and dividing them in half on the way. “It’s twelve-fifty.”

“I-is that all?” Jean blinks up at Marco, who looks honestly flabbergasted. “I, um. I just thought it’d be more. Sorry.”

Jean takes a deep breath and does his best to not outwardly sulk, awkwardly crossing his arms over his thin chest. “When you find kindness around here, don’t stare at it twice,” he sniffs. “It won’t always be there the second time you look.”

“O-oh, oh, no, I’m really grateful, uh. I just, um.” Marco stares into his wallet and flusters quietly, then pulls out a twenty and hands it to Jean. “Thank you, Jean.”

“Call it a ‘welcome to the neighborhood’ favor,” Jean mumbles. 

Marco nods quickly, accepting his change and shoving it into his pocket before he reaches out and delicately scoops up the bouquet. “Well, um. See you around?”

“Yup.” Jean busies himself with something under the counter as Marco skitters back toward the door, but a thought occurs to him just as Marco steps out into the misting rain. “Hey, Marco!” The brunette turns and pokes his head back in, wide eyes curious. “Don’t let her put those in that god-awful green monstrosity in the den,” Jean says with a shudder. “And I know she’ll want to, but you tell her I’ll take it personally. My product is better than that.”

Laughing loudly, Marco aims a huge grin at Jean and replies, “Noted,” before he ducks back out and slides through the door to his own shop, leaving Jean alone once more.

With a sigh, Jean sits back on his stool and pulls his book out again, but he finds it harder to focus on the words now that he knows that tall-dark-and-handsome Marco has some pretty serious laughter lines.

\--

After giving it some thought, Jean resolves to be nicer to Marco. 

He’s a stranger in a strange land, after all, and once Jean gives it some actual thought, he realizes that he can’t really imagine how weird it must be for Marco to move to a tiny coastal tourist town a thousand miles away from the urban sprawl he must be used to, away from the hundreds of friends he undoubtedly has. As far as Jean knows, the only link Marco has to this place is the kid he has with Mina, and that was big news to pretty much everyone in town when it finally came out about a month prior to Marco’s relocation.

There were very few people who knew about Mina’s kid beforehand, aside from her elderly parents. She moved to southern California for college the same fall as Jean, but for the year and a half that they attended UCLA together, he never saw her looking anything even approaching pregnant. He figures it must have happened after he dropped out and moved back home. 

How Mina Carolina, the good-girl education major from dinky Trost, managed to get knocked up by a hot tattoo artist, then graduate on time and come home without a trace of said pregnancy, no one really knows. Well, aside from Mina and Marco, obviously.

At any rate, that large collection of unknowns is an enormous breeding ground for gossip, and Trost has a surplus of old ladies with nothing to do but talk.

Just thinking back to the way he had shriveled under Jean’s casual scrutiny, it looks like Marco might feel more than a little outnumbered, and there’s really no use denying the fact. Marco is wildly outnumbered. He’s _new,_ and worse, he’s inextricably attached to the town sweetheart. Between those two things, Marco’s coming face to face with an army made up of nosy old people who all somehow changed Mina’s diapers at some point and overprotective twenty-somethings who all grew up with her, and that cannot possibly be a good feeling.

It’s unusual for Jean to think so charitably, this much is true. He blames it entirely on the dead season leaving him too much time to think, and he only has so much tolerance for dwelling on his own stale problems, especially with something so new and interesting to dwell on instead. 

He insists to himself that it has nothing to do with Marco’s laughter lines, nor with his subtle reluctance to buy roses for the estranged mother of his child.

\--

Predictably, Mina uses the flowers as an excuse to drop by Jean’s shop after school the next day. She may have changed in some ways, but there are things about her that Jean suspects will linger until she’s old and grey. Possibly including her girlish hairstyle. 

When the bell rings to signal the door opening, it’s almost immediately cut off by an even louder, higher-pitched, “Jean!” The sound, ear-splitting as it is, is nothing but familiar to Jean, who stands to greet her with a crooked smile and a weird, one-armed hug. Well, weird and one-armed for Jean. Mina doesn’t fuck around when it comes to hugs, and her enthusiasm shows in the dull ache around Jean’s ribs and the wheeze she squeezes out of him.

“Hey, Mina,” he manages once she lets him go and takes a step back. “You look good, girl,” he continues once he’s looked her over, which earns him an enormous smile. “How’s things? Still teaching hell-math up at our old school?”

Mina nods amiably, her hands resting in her coat pockets. “Teaching _calculus,_ yes. It’s my fourth year already, it’s crazy.” She hums warmly and reaches out to pinch the side of Jean’s loose pink sweater, chirping, “Looking dapper as always. How are things here? The flowers you sent home with Marco were _darling,_ by the way, thank you so much.”

“I thought you’d like them,” he muses, crossing his arms and leaning his hip against the counter, before he squints down at her and asks, “You didn’t put them—”

“In the den, yes I darn well did!” She grins at Jean’s dismayed groan, entirely impervious to his drama. “I think it’s festive. Red and green, obviously.”

“It is _November._ ”

“It is _Christmas._ ” Mina laughs over Jean’s sneering, then invites herself behind the counter and perches on the stool, and while she makes herself comfortable, Jean turns to face her again, letting her take his spot. “Anyway, I just wanted to drop by and say thank you personally, and check in on you. Marco said you were very patient and helpful, so I was worried you might have joined a cult or something.”

“We prefer the term ‘secret friendship society,’” Jean snarks, at which Mina positively erupts in giggles. He lets her get it all out before he continues, “How is that whole thing, anyway? With Marco and, um...”

“Paul, after my father,” she provides. “It’s—well, it’s _different._ ” Mina pauses to collect her thoughts, idly twirling the rain-curled ends of one of her loose pigtails between her fingers. “But I expected that it would be, you know?”

He really doesn’t know, but Jean hums anyway, moving to cross his arms on the end of the counter. “What’s the deal with that? The old folks have been rioting in the streets for a month now.”

“Ugh, I know,” Mina groans, rolling her wide eyes. “They’re like angry hens, all of them.” She takes a deep breath then, pursing her lips thoughtfully, then says, “I dunno, it’s... it’s a _really_ long story, and probably kind of weird and boring.” 

Biting her lip shyly, she peers up at Jean through her thick eyelashes, so he gestures around the empty shop and says, “Do you see me doing shit else?” She laughs at that, relaxing once more, so Jean leans forward more and props his chin in his hand, eyebrows raised expectantly.

“Well, okay,” she sighs, taking a moment to strip her coat off and toss it over the till before she begins. “Ugh, how do I even tell this story... well, at the time that I had Paul, I wasn’t exactly ready for a family, and I kind of... freaked out.” She pauses, shifting guiltily for a moment. “Anyway, stuff happened, right. Well, when I came home after graduation, my dad was already really sick, you remember. He passed a few months after I started teaching at the high school.” Jean nods slowly. “And I was pretty okay for a while, but then _mom_ started getting sick too, and when she passed last year, I kind of went a little crazy all alone in that house.” 

Mina takes a deep, shaky breath and blinks up at the ceiling, running her fingers under her watery eyes, so Jean stares down at the counter and swallows heavily, biting down the bitter taste in his mouth. She gives a few quiet sniffles, then huffs sternly and slaps her cheeks, shaking it off. 

“Oof, sorry,” she says, “I still get a little misty. You understand. Anyway, I couldn’t stand living there alone, so I started thinking about marriage and family and stuff, and after a while I got up the courage to call Marco.”

Jean raises his eyebrows. “And he just dropped everything and moved up here?”

“Well, no...” Mina fiddles with her dark hair some more. “I first contacted him earlier this year, and he gave me a few really good reasons that he didn’t want to come. But we stayed in contact, and we talked it over some more, and then last month he told me that he’d move up here with Paul and try to work things out.”

“Are you two, like...” Jean crosses his first two fingers vaguely, but she understands and shakes her head.

“I think I want to be, but... it might be hard for him.” She raises a stern eyebrow before Jean can ask. “And _that’s_ certainly not my place to discuss with you.”

“I didn’t care anyway,” Jean lies, standing up straight and turning his nose up at her. In all honesty, he hadn’t expected to get the whole story from her. Not about something this deeply personal, and especially not when he and Mina haven’t been especially close since grade school. He lets her shrug off the beginning and the end, satisfied with just this one piece of the puzzle for now.

“Uh-huh. Whatever.” Seemingly considering the topic closed, Mina stands as well and stretches loudly, then turns back to Jean with a wide smile. “Hey, you should come by for dinner on Friday!”

Jean purses his lips and frowns. “Who all’s gonna be there?”

“Nobody,” Mina replies simply. “Just me, Marco, Paul, and you. And a girlfriend, if you have one?”

“Never ever,” Jean says firmly, crossing his arms again. “You know that, Mina.”

“ _Fine,_ ” she huffs. “A boyfriend, then?”

Shaking his head at that, Jean stuffs his hands in his apron pockets and sighs, “Not me. I am single and certainly _not_ ready to mingle with any of your nerd teacher friends, before you get any ideas.”

“I wasn’t!” Mina insists, although she totally was, and the way she shifts guiltily gives that away entirely. 

“Uh-huh.”

“Anyway,” she blurts, retrieving her coat and moving quickly toward the door. “I have to get going, but should I set a plate for you? This Friday night, around 7:30?”

Reclaiming his stool, Jean pretends to think through all of his tired excuses and nonexistent weekend plans before he concedes defeat. “Sure, why not. I’ll be there.”

“Great!” After buttoning up her coat and making sure she has everything, Mina beams up at Jean again, hand on the door handle, and sings, “See you then, Jean!”

Once she’s gone, Jean props his elbows on the counter and rests his chin in his palms, staring contemplatively through the foggy glass pane in the door. If nothing else, it’ll be nice to chat with Marco some more, and to see what kind of kid he and Mina made.

It’s not like he has shit else to do, anyway.

\--

Come Friday afternoon, Jean has sworn up and down that he won’t obsess over what he’s going to wear, but of course it happens anyway. 

He tries watching a movie or two to clear the usual anticipatory anxiety, and when that doesn’t help, he finds himself missing the chaos of the tourist season more than little. Having to close the shop as early as two in the afternoon in the winter does him absolutely no good.

In the end, he decides not to wear a bow tie after all, because that’s absolutely absurd, and he somehow manages to talk himself down from wearing a vest as well. He makes up for it by wearing a pale green tie with his white shirt and fitted teal pants, which is about as close to casual dress as he’s gotten since he took over running Eulalie seven years ago, after his mother became too sick to continue doing so herself. 

Jean arrives at Mina’s a little too early, awkwardly holding a bunch of small blue flowers interspersed with dainty sprigs of white baby’s breath, but she makes no mention of the time when she flings open the bright red door and greets him at max volume. She hauls him into the house and bustles him down the hallway, into the strange circular dining room, which is almost eerily unchanged from how Jean has always remembered it. Weirdly, it still smells like cats, even though no cats have lived here in five years at the very least. 

“Marco’s helping Paul with his homework in the den,” Mina chirps, aiming an enormous smile up at Jean. She points at the little bouquet he’s still clutching and says, “You always bring such lovely flowers! Thank god I have so many vases, huh?”

Before Jean can reply, a warm, familiar voice comes from the doorway just behind him, which only makes him jump a little. “Maybe one less now,” Marco chuckles sheepishly, sliding out from behind Jean and around to the other side of the ancient dining room table. 

Mina huffs slightly, but she lets it slide, always the gracious host. “So, what do these ones say?”

“Oh, um,” Jean stammers, blinking down at them. “They’re blue periwinkle.” Mina hums and takes them gently, then turns to place them in a small glass vase resting in the middle of the table. “They mean ‘early friendship.’ The baby’s breath is just for contrast,” Jean continues quietly, more shy than he’s really used to when faced with Mina’s exuberant, clearly caffeinated enthusiasm, especially in front of someone new.

“Thank you, Jean,” Mina says warmly, reaching over and squeezing Jean’s bicep. She turns to Marco then, her smile widening, and says, “Jean knows _everything_ about the language of flowers. Even the really obscure ones! He really puts his heart into that shop, it’s pretty famous in these parts.”

Jean can _feel_ his ears turning red. He shuffles awkwardly and stares at the floor, not really sure what to do with Mina’s flattering description, but before he can wither too much, Marco makes a distinctly interested sound and turns to him. “Really? Where did you learn that?”

“From my mother, mostly,” Jean replies, rubbing the nape of his neck just for something to do with his hands. “And from books, internet, whatever.”

“Which books?” Marco leans his hands on the table as he asks. “Kate Greenaway, by any chance?”

Jean’s eyebrows shoot up. Possibly straight into his hair. “Yeah, actually, for the most part,” he finally manages, once he’s untangled his tongue. “You know of it?”

Marco flashes him an unfairly attractive grin and nods excitedly. “I adore her illustrations, especially her flowers. She definitely influenced my style.”

“Marco’s portrait tattoos are what landed him the job at Eren’s shop,” Mina says, leaning over enough to catch Jean’s attention again. “But all he does all day is draw flowers. It’s a madness, I swear.”

“This from the woman who only ever draws actual madness,” Marco grumbles.

“It’s _calculus,_ not drawing,” Mina laughs, propping her hands on her thin hips. 

“There’s an awful lot of squiggly lines for something that isn’t drawing...”

Jean laughs at that, sliding his hands into his pockets. “I’m with him, Mina,” he snorts, earning himself a harmless glare. “Pretty sure all I did in calculus was draw, anyway.”

“Heathens,” she huffs, before she turns on her heel and stomps off into the vibrantly yellow kitchen. 

A brief silence falls in her wake, just long enough for Jean to glance around the room and confirm that literally nothing has changed, before Marco stands up again and directs his attention to the doorway behind Jean. “Hey, bud, what took you so long?”

“This house is weird,” comes a small, quiet voice from somewhere far below Jean’s ears. He startles again and steps further to the side, peering down at the serious-looking little boy that had appeared out of nowhere. Paul, presumably, if his black hair and button nose tell any tales. “I keep getting lost upstairs,” he continues softly as he moves to stand beside Marco, still clearly perturbed by the house’s layout.

“Yeah, me too,” Marco hums. “Hey, uh, this is your mom’s friend Jean. He’s joining us for dinner.”

Paul blinks up at Jean, who gives him the world’s weirdest wave, making it obvious that he has no real idea what to do with himself around children. “Hello,” Paul says amiably, and he has the sweet mercy to return the wave. “I’m Paul, I’m six and a half.”

“Oh, yeah, okay. I’m Jean, twenty-six and three quarters. Nice to meet you,” Jean mumbles, rocking back onto his heels. “Six and a half, huh? So you’re in... first grade, then?” Paul nods. Squinting thoughtfully, Jean taps his knuckle against his chin, then asks, “Is there a girl named Natalia in your class, by any chance? Short, loud, way more hair than any one kid needs?”

Paul nods again, much more lively this time, and blurts, “She’s cool! She talked to me on my first day, at recess!”

“Sounds about right,” Jean laughs. He glances up at Marco again, who’s giving him a curious smile, his head tilted slightly. “Oh, I’m friends with her parents,” Jean explains. “Connie and Sasha. You should meet up with them sometime, I think you’d like them.”

Marco nods to himself, blinking at Paul, who looks slightly more cheerful now than when he had come in. He smiles down at him, ruffling the kid’s already-messy hair, which elicits an indignant squawk.

Jean helps Marco set the table then, while Mina finishes whatever she’s doing in the kitchen, and whenever Marco brushes lightly past him in the narrow space the huge table leaves them to navigate, Jean has to remind himself of the tail end of his earlier conversation with Mina. 

Reluctant or not, Marco still came here to be with Mina, and she still intends to try and revive whatever weird electricity brought her and Marco together to begin with. No amount of charming, crooked grins and warm body contact is enough to make Jean want to go against Mina’s wishes. Even if Marco’s somehow impossibly cuter here in the warm light of Mina’s dining room, all smiles and jokes and easy confidence, not a shred of his withering from a few days ago to be found.

It’s far from the first time Jean’s harbored a crush on a straight guy, anyway. Shit, it’s not even the first time he’s had eyes for a man already spoken for. 

By now, he’s gotten good at keeping his heart locked up tight, where neither he nor anyone else can get hurt by its fanciful, ultimately transient attractions.

\--

Dinner passes without incident. Mina’s a great cook, much like her father before her, and Paul is apparently one of those weird kids who eat their vegetables of their own free will. More than can be said for Marco, who isn’t as subtle as he thinks about moving his broccoli to his son’s plate, one piece at a time when Mina isn’t looking. Paul seems used to it. Jean tries to hide his snickering in his water, and for the most part, it works.

After dinner, Paul makes Mina’s entire week when he turns to her and places his tiny hand on her wrist, then mumbles, “Will you help me with math?”

In the ensuing high-volume math teacher tornado that whisks Paul out into the den, Marco manages to sign himself and Jean up for table-clearing duty, which doesn’t bother Jean in the least. He thinks maybe it should, but he also thinks that he’s had enough basic math education to last most people a lifetime, so dishes are really the lesser of two evils.

As Marco’s filling up the sink with hot, soapy water, he rolls his hoodie sleeves up to his elbows, and Jean finally gets a good look at the tattoos winding down Marco’s forearms and onto his strong wrists. Well, some of them, anyway; Marco’s sleeves seem insanely complex, to say the least, too much so to be able to take them all in with one lingering glance.

His left forearm looks to be mostly composed of fantastical sea creatures, including a man in a suit with what appears to be a whole octopus for a head. These tattoos are full of wild, vivid color, soft blue water seamlessly pulling all the strange creatures together into a cohesive scene that flows up into his hoodie, presumably to his shoulder. 

The work on his right forearm is much sharper, bold red and black lines forming complicated geometric shapes and patterns, some of which somehow resemble hungry rows of teeth at some angles. And maybe also a bear with deer antlers, but Jean can’t quite tell due to a blob of dish soap bubbles covering the snout. These patterns continue up under Marco’s hoodie as well, almost teasing around the sharp edges of a story hidden on his upper arm. If he’d allow it, Jean honestly wouldn’t mind sitting down and staring at Marco’s arms at length sometime, and not even for the usual reasons.

As impressed as Jean is, he’s never been too good with compliments, so the first thing he thinks to say is pretty lame, all things considered. “Those are nice,” he murmurs, gesturing feebly at Marco’s forearms, before gritting his teeth on the urge to kick himself right in the ass. 

“Hey, thanks,” Marco replies cheerfully, aiming a bright smile at the blonde before he turns his attention to the pile of dishes Jean had placed beside him. “Do you have any?”

Jean blinks up at Marco, moving to the other side of the sink. “Tattoos? No, not yet. I have some ideas, though.”

“Oh yeah?” Humming interestedly, Marco hands Jean a freshly-scrubbed, soapy plate to be rinsed and dried. “You know, it’s pretty slow at the shop right now... if you ever get bored over there, feel free to come next door. We can chat about your ideas sometime, if you’d like.”

Once Jean’s opened every cabinet twice and found where the plates go, he mumbles something noncommittal, somewhere between embarrassed and flustered. It seems Marco’s already getting used to Jean’s cantankerous nature, though, based on the way he doesn’t push the topic. Besides, he’s probably used to people being some sort of shy about tattoo ideas. Jean’s not entirely sure _why_ he’s still so shy, seeing as Marco apparently spends a lot of his time drawing flowers anyway, but his ears burn nonetheless.

“So, um,” Jean murmurs, pulling open Mina’s silverware drawer and finding a bunch of random shit instead. He somehow always mixes up the random-shit drawer and the silverware drawer, no matter whose house he’s in. He shakes his head and opens the right drawer, then turns back to Marco and continues his thought. “How are you liking things here? Not much going on lately.”

Marco laughs warmly, conceding Jean’s point with a shrug. “Yeah, it’s definitely a change of pace. I was kind of hoping it would be, though. L.A. was starting to wear me down, with Paul and the shops and all. This is way easier on me, for the most part.”

“Shops?” Jean repeats, emphasizing the ‘s’ at the end.

“Oh, yeah,” Marco hums. “In big cities, you usually find places with a bunch of tattoo shops kind of piled on top of each other, so eventually we all end up working everywhere. It’s a little crazy.” He reaches over to the stove and grabs the big copper pot Mina had served dinner from, letting hot water soak into it for a moment before he starts scrubbing. “I wanted to spend more quality time with Paul, you know, instead of just running around being single-dad-bot all the time. And with all this spare time, I have time to have actual hobbies now, which is pretty cool.”

“Yeah?” Jean laughs softly, taking the heavy pot from Marco when he offers it. “What kind of hobbies?”

“Drawing, mostly,” Marco replies. “I felt like I never _drew_ anymore, which is a pretty huge bummer for someone who makes a living as an artist. I love inking, don’t get me wrong, but there’s something zen about drawing something that doesn’t immediately bleed on you.”

“I imagine so, yeah,” Jean snorts, before he slings his dish towel over his shoulder and moves to stuff the pot under the counter. 

“I really only have one major complaint...”

“Hmm?”

As he drains the sink, having finished his scrubbing, Marco pulls a face at Jean and groans, “It’s _so cold._ And I swear it never stops raining.”

“ _Oregon,_ dude,” Jean snickers. “I see you wearing that hoodie, like, all the time, is it that bad?”

“It’s that bad! And worse!” He steals Jean’s towel to dry his hands, then pulls his hoodie sleeves back down and shivers dramatically. “I think I need to buy more blankets, I keep waking up at night because I’m frozen stiff.”

Quirking an eyebrow, Jean leans against the counter and asks, “Why don’t you just snuggle up to Mina some more? She seems like the space heater type.”

Marco sucks on his lips for a moment, awkwardly scratching the back of his head before he mumbles, “I, uh. We don’t sleep together. I’ve been sleeping on the floor in Paul’s room, for the most part.”

“Oh.” Jean blinks rapidly, honestly surprised by that. “Really? Why?”

“It’s closer to what we’re used to,” Marco mutters, kicking at the grout between two floor tiles, either uncomfortable or homesick. “We lived in my studio apartment in L.A., so we’re used to sleeping near each other. And sleeping _warmly._ ”

“O-oh.” As he idly chews on his lip, Jean wonders if he should apologize for prying again, but Marco seems to recover quickly enough, waving his hand as if to clear the air. 

“Hey, you want a beer or something? I finally found where you guys keep the alcohol in this town.”

Jean snorts loudly. “Yeah, it’s right next to the fashionable leather flip flops.”

“ _So_ weird...”

“Sure, I’ll take a beer,” Jean hums, still chuckling at Marco’s expense. Then again, now that he thinks about it, maybe it is a little weird that the only convenient place to buy take-home beer in Trost also happens to sell wildly overpriced sunglasses and sandals to forgetful tourists.

After digging around in Mina’s crowded fridge, Marco expertly pops open two bottles of beer with his keyring and hands one to Jean, then amiably clinks the necks together. Jean raises it slightly in thanks, then takes a long sip, sighing contently at the cool, wheaty taste. There’s a brief, comfortable silence as they stand in the kitchen and drink, until Marco apparently has a thought, humming around a mouthful of beer.

“Mm, I wanted to ask you,” he says once he’s swallowed, “When’s swimming season start at the beach?”

Jean just raises his eyebrows. “When’s _what_ season?”

“Swimming season?” Marco flounders slightly, then makes feeble swimming motions. “In all that ocean, like, a block away from where we work?”

“Dude, you can’t swim in that.”

“... What.”

Laughing loudly, Jean hops up onto the counter and crosses his legs, all the better to observe Marco’s growing horror. “Yeah, man. Even in the thick of summer, it doesn’t really go above eighty degrees here, and that’s just the air. The water’s around half that on a good day.”

“Oh my god,” Marco mumbles, leaning weakly against the fridge and covering his eyes with one hand. “Oh no.”

“Unless you can surf, and you don’t mind freezing your balls off, the ocean’s pretty much just for looking at up here. Sorry.”

Breathing a loud sigh, Marco scrubs his hand down his face, then covers his mouth, staring widely through the doorway into the dining room. “Paul is gonna _murder_ me...”

“He a big swimmer?”

Marco nods lamely, taking a deep, revitalizing gulp of his beer. For strength, or whatever. “He used to love going to the beach and playing in the sand down there. Half the reason I got him to agree to move here at all was because I told him we were gonna be so close to the beach... crap.”

Humming sympathetically, Jean sips his own drink for a moment. “You know what fun beach activities we’re known for?”

“What’s that?”

Jean smiles grimly. “Storm-watching.” 

His eyes widening further, Marco stares at the blonde for a moment, as if waiting for the punchline. “But...” Marco protests faintly, “But it’s _always_ raining.”

“Yeah. But when it’s extra stormy, that’s a beach activity.” Jean pauses thoughtfully, resting his bottle against his lip. “Oh, and looking at birds, depending on what season it is. We get a lot of weird migratory birds that like to sit on all those big-ass rocks on the coastline.”

“ _Oh_ my god,” Marco groans, letting his head fall back against the fridge, his eyes sliding closed. “My son is going to destroy me.”

“Hey, it’s not all bad,” Jean laughs, “You can catch hermit crabs in the tide pools sometimes.”

Heaving a loud, put-upon sigh, Marco pinches the bridge of his nose and mumbles, “Oh, good. My son, the crab collector.”

“Pets teach responsibility, or something.”

“Or _guilt,_ when they die because you forgot to wet their sponge...”

Snorting again, Jean grins crookedly and says, “Sounds like you speak from experience.”

“I’m twenty-seven and I still feel, like, sharp pangs of guilt about this hermit crab my sister and I had when I was six,” Marco grumbles, running his hand through his hair. “Twenty years of crab guilt. I don’t think I’m ready to face them yet.”

“I doubt they’re harboring a grudge.”

“Haven’t you ever made eye contact with a hermit crab?” Marco wiggles two fingers in front of his forehead, mimicking the shiny black stalk eyes hermit crabs have. “They peek out just long enough to judge you for your sins, man, they _know._ ”

“Okay, paranoid,” Jean snickers. Marco grumbles some more, sucking on his beer and sulking somewhat, but Jean lets him be for the moment, leaning his head back against the cabinet with an amused hum. “So, you have a sister?”

“Well, I have three,” Marco replies with a nod. “And two brothers.”

“Oh my god.”

“Yeah, that’s what my dad said,” Marco laughs, running his hand through his hair again. “I’m the second youngest of six.”

“Jesus.” Jean shakes his head and sips his beer, trying and failing to imagine that kind of chaos. “I’m an only child, man, that sounds like hell on earth.”

“I was never bored, at least.”

“Or lonely?”

“Mm, not usually, no. I cherished what alone time I could find, honestly.”

Breathing a low whistle, Jean shakes his head again. He can’t remember the last time he was even in the same room as five other people at the same time, let alone growing up like that. Then again, Jean grew up lonely and cranky at best, and wildly depressed at worst, so maybe there’s something to be said for the big-family hustle and bustle. He blinks over at Marco, watching him idly peel the label off his bottle for a moment before he asks, “You miss the big-family vibe?”

“Mmm...” Marco tilts his head thoughtfully, lips pursed. “Yes and no. It’s quiet, but I like having elbow room, you know.”

Jean nods. “You thinking about more kids yourself?”

“ _Oof,_ ” Marco wheezes, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m still getting used to having _one,_ man, I haven’t even started thinking about making more.”

“Fair enough,” the blonde chuckles awkwardly. “Sorry if I’m, like, snooping.”

“Nah, it’s a reasonable question.” Marco finishes his beer in one big swallow, turning to drop it in the little glass recycling thing stuffed between the fridge and an old, dusty recipe bookshelf. “Like, I always _wanted_ kids, but.” Pausing for a moment, Marco gives a lopsided shrug and chews on his thumbnail. A nervous habit of his, apparently. “I got started unexpectedly, so I’m still working on getting my feet under me.”

“Ah.” Jean sucks on his lips to keep from prying any further, staring down at his own peeling beer label in the meantime. He’s dying to know the whole story, obviously, but the way Marco shifts and squirms whenever it comes up makes Jean feel weirdly guilty. 

“I’m guessing you don’t have any kids?” Marco asks after a moment, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Jean shakes his head in response, blinking back up at Marco as he drains the last of his beer. “A wife, girlfriend?”

Snorting softly, Jean says, “Nah, just me right now. Besides, I’m gay as hell.”

“Oh.” Marco blinks a few times, then laughs loudly, covering his mouth the way he does, the way that makes Jean groan internally because it’s stupidly attractive. “Not only gay, but gay as hell, huh?”

“Can’t you tell?” Jean spreads his arms, one eyebrow raised. “I run a flower shop, and I wear _pastels_ every day.” Sliding off the counter, Jean crosses to drop his bottle in with Marco’s, then stuffs his hands in his pockets and shrugs. “I like looking at girls, but they’re not for me.”

Marco nods slowly. “Makes sense,” he hums, loosely crossing his arms. “I dunno, I don’t really like to assume things about people, you know? People come as they are, sort of thing.”

“Decent of you,” Jean mumbles. More than can readily be said of a good portion of Trost’s elderly population, at least. 

Before either of them can continue the conversation, Paul ambles into the kitchen with a colorful-looking storybook, holding it up so they can see the thoroughly defaced illustration of a father and a vaguely genderless child. “Look, daddy,” he says proudly, “I found you. Like Where’s Waldo. Can I call you Waldo?”

“I mean, if you want to,” Marco laughs, bending down to examine Paul’s work. He’d been fairly thorough in covering the father with tattoos, some of them continuing across the man’s clothes and into the space around him. “Hey, I don’t have a flower on my face.”

“Maybe you should,” Paul sniffs. He squints up at Jean next, then flips through his book with a pensive expression. Once he finds what he’s looking for, he shows Jean a picture of a snooty-looking banker and says, “I think this is you, Jean. Do you work at the bank?”

“No, thank god,” Jean snickers. “I sell flowers.”

Apparently pleased with that response, Paul nods, then purses his lips at Marco and says, “I bet _he_ would get a flower on his face.”

“I don’t know about the face,” Jean snorts, running his hand absently across his cheek. “It’s how I make all my money. Maybe on my arms, though.”

Paul smiles brightly at the idea. “Both arms?”

“Sure, why not.”

“That would be nice.” Paul smirks up at Marco, whose eyes widen in concern, before he aims a smarmy grin at Jean and chirps, “Daddy has a really big chry-san-the-mum tattooed on his butt, you know.”

Marco bolts upright and buries his face in his hands with a groan, unable to face either his son’s or Jean’s amusement, but Jean can’t quite keep himself from cackling at Marco’s expense, covering his mouth a few howls too late.

“Why did I ever tell you that...” Marco whimpers, curling in on himself, his ears hilariously flushed.

“Wh-what—” Jean stammers, interrupting himself with a loud snort. “What kind of chrysanthemum?” 

Peering out at Jean between his fingers, Marco ponders for a moment before he gives a muffled, “Chinese chrysanthemum.”

“Mm, I see,” Jean snickers, before he takes a deep, calming breath and regains his composure. “‘Cheerfulness under adversity,’ huh? I like it.”

“Thanks,” comes Marco’s mortified response.

“Why the butt, though?”

Marco just lets out another wheedling groan.

\--

By the time Jean leaves Mina’s, Marco has mostly recovered his dignity, even though Jean is still laughing and Paul is still calling his father ‘Waldo.’ He thanks them for a nice evening and dodges Mina’s attempts to wrangle him into a wildly awkward double-date with one of her weird friends, then drives the few minutes it takes to get back to his own little blue house in content silence, happy to just take in the sound of the light rain.

The feeling lasts even once Jean’s settled in at home, lazily flicking through whatever Netflix feels he’s in the mood for, and when he finally collapses facefirst into bed, surrounded once again by the steady patter of raindrops and the woody groan of the old house settling, he manages to fall asleep before the contentment has a chance to slip away from him again.

His childhood home now feels far too large for him, far too empty, but for the first night in a while, that feeling doesn’t haunt him.

\--

One morning early the next week, Jean may have actually fallen asleep hunched over at his counter, having stayed up too late the night before and woken up too early this morning for a delivery. The quiet season absolutely earns its name just about every year, but this week’s been particularly mind-numbing already, so when the bell above the door jingles cheerfully and snaps Jean out of a half-nap, he’s both relieved and annoyed.

When his customer turns out to just be Marco, the relief eclipses the annoyance entirely, followed shortly by an excited little flutter in his stomach, which he ignores altogether.

“Were you just sleeping?” Marco asks with a badly-stifled laugh, stuffing a thin black book under his arm and shutting the door against the wet, chilly wind sweeping down the street. 

“ _No,_ ” Jean huffs, sitting up straight and crossing his arms. After a moment, he sniffs disdainfully, then mutters, “Maybe.”

“Uh-huh.” Coming to lean his elbows casually on the counter, Marco grins up at Jean, looking stupid and windswept and terribly cute as he says, “Well, if it makes you feel better, I was exactly the same next door. I figured I’d pay you a visit, maybe keep myself awake in the process. It is _dead_ lately.”

Jean snorts at that, then runs a hand through his hair, smoothing down sleepy cowlicks as he does. “Not too many old folks in the market for new ink, huh.” As Marco breathes a good-natured chuckle, Jean stands and stretches, loudly popping his stiff spine a few good times. “You want some coffee?” he asks around a muffled yawn, gesturing over his shoulder at the little coffee maker sitting on the back counter.

“Oh, sure,” Marco hums, perking up at the idea. “Thanks!”

“Sure.” Jean grabs the pot to fill with water, trying to be subtle about brushing loose, soggy stem clippings off the trimming sink. He may not mind coffee accidentally brewed with bits of flowers, but who knows what Marco’s opinion on the matter is.

As Jean’s going about making coffee, Marco stands up straight and looks around the shop, seemingly taking his time observing the colors and arrangement of the displays, a soft smile curving the corners of his lips. “You know, Jean,” he says, “You really have a nice-looking shop here. It’s so... I dunno. _Welcoming._ ”

Snorting again, Jean jabs the ‘brew’ button and turns to face Marco again, loosely crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s way nicer in the spring and summer.”

“Oh?”

Jean nods, running a hand through his hair again when Marco looks over at him, obviously keenly interested. “I can get more creative when I have room to order more plants.”

“D’you have any pictures?” Marco asks brightly, turning to lean on the counter again. Jean can feel his ears burning, so he purses his lips and pointedly does not meet Marco’s enthusiastic gaze, once again entirely unused to such honest interest in the inner workings of what he does.

“N-not on me. Facebook, maybe.”

Marco nods, pulling his phone out right there. “I’ll add you, then. I’ve been wondering for a while.” If there’s steam pouring out of Jean’s ears, he’s sure he can blame it on the coffee pot, which is noisily burping vaguely coffee-scented clouds at him. Marco drops his phone on the black book he’d brought in with him, presumably his sketchbook, and crosses his arms on the counter with a grin as he asks, “Tell me about your plans for spring?”

Jean stares at him. “Do you really care?”

“Yeah!” Marco stands up again, scooting over to the display on the end of the counter, a haphazard little arrangement of different-colored roses stuffed in a few vintage-looking mason jars. Jean had thrown it together the day before, when he’d been soul-crushingly bored and particularly annoyed with the empty space at that end of the counter. “Like this, I like this. It’s simple, but it flows really nicely, you know?” Throwing Jean a smile, Marco leans from one side to another, observing it from several different angles. “And it looks good no matter where you are.”

Having never possessed the talent of taking compliments with any sort of grace, Jean blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “Sh-shut up, dude.”

For half a second, Jean wants to kick his own ass, but to his legitimate surprise, Marco just laughs, and Jean almost believes that the sound could pull the sun out from behind the ever-present Oregon clouds.

Oh boy.

“Here, I’ll make you a deal,” Marco laughs, tapping his finger on his sketchbook. “You tell me about one of your spring ideas, and I’ll draw it for you. Is that a fair trade?”

Jean shakes his head and pours a mug of coffee for each of them, careful to slide it across the counter to Marco to prevent any sort of hand-brushing shenanigans. “What if I just describe _The Little Shop of Horrors_? You’ll be trapped in vine hell for the rest of your days.”

“You know, I actually like drawing vines.” Marco blows on his coffee, somehow still smiling up at Jean around the rim of the mug. “It’s weirdly relaxing.”

“You’re a weirdo,” Jean snickers, at which Marco shrugs his agreement. “Ugh, fine, I’m curious anyway,” he groans, gesturing flippantly at his abandoned stool for Marco to sit. 

Perking up, Marco happily moves around the counter and takes Jean’s seat, setting his coffee down safely away from his elbows. “Okay, gimme a sec,” he murmurs once he’s settled, opening his book and flicking quickly through to a new page. Jean sips his coffee idly and peeks over Marco’s shoulder, watching the brunette whip a pencil out of his hoodie pocket, and a small ruler out from the back cover of the sketchbook.

Hunching over his sketchbook, Marco takes a brief glance around, then sets to sketching out a few light lines with the ruler, probably the shape of the shop walls or whatever. 

A few quick scratching sounds later, Marco tosses the ruler aside and rolls his shoulders, then says, “Alright, hit me.”

“Okay, Picasso,” Jean snorts, before he glances around with a hum. 

If he hesitates, it’s not because he doesn’t have any ideas offhand. If anything, he probably has too damn many, half of them too crazy to even seriously consider. No, the hesitation is more because he hasn’t had this kind of talk with anyone in more than two years, and he has to remember what it’s like to put his ideas into words, rather than allowing his mute hands to bring them to life.

Putting his mug down, Jean slides out from behind the counter and taps his knuckle against his chin, pursing his lips in thought. He can feel Marco watching him, maybe catches the light scratch of pencil on paper, but he puts those thoughts on hold for now.

“You see these hooks?” he asks, pointing at a line of small, unoccupied gold fixtures screwed into the ceiling along the back wall. Marco hums softly, so Jean continues, “I want to carry more long hanging plants next season. I have this bad habit of just sticking to big, obnoxious explosions of color during the spring, but next year I want more green shit hanging around. Makes the colors pop more.”

The pencil scratching grows significantly more pronounced as Marco mumbles his agreement, once more bent over his sketchbook. Even without the weight of those big brown eyes on him, Jean can still feel the brunette’s rapt attention, the way he’s taking in his every word and the sounds of him translating them onto a page. 

It’s not like Jean’s been starved for attention, but the feeling fuels him more than he’d ever expected.

His coffee’s long gone cold by the time he remembers that it’s even there.

\--

“Holy _shit,_ Marco,” Jean mumbles when Marco finally lets him see what he’d ended up with.

Proudly brushing his hands together, Marco grins at him and sits up straight, sipping his own ice-cold coffee with an air of accomplishment. “Look about right?”

Jean squints at the page, turning the sketchbook and tilting his head. “Yeah, it’s... that’s exactly it, man, just how I’d pictured it. Like you reached right into my head and grabbed it. Wow.”

Marco nods and leans his elbows on the counter, watching Jean with a crooked smile as he absorbs the sketch. “I like that look, you know. ‘Overgrown’ is a bold look, but I think you could pull it off. You’ve got the light for it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jean mumbles, lightly pinching his lower lip. “Never did like the minimalist look much, feels too empty.” Humming his agreement, Marco stretches his hands above his head, then finishes off his coffee, idly ruffling his already-mussed hair with one hand. Jean would be tempted to gawk at that if he wasn’t still finding new things to stare at in Marco’s drawing. “Dude, this is seriously amazing,” he says, standing up straight again. “Did you go to school for stuff like this, or...?”

“Nope,” Marco replies lightly, “I actually, uh, dropped out when I was sixteen, so I guess I never really went to school for anything.”

“Oh.” Jean blinks widely, then stuffs his hands in his pockets, his ears starting to burn again. “Sorry, uh—”

“I’m not ashamed or anything,” Marco says quickly, noticing Jean’s rising tension. “If I was, I’d probably just make something up, you know? But school works better for some people than others, and I’m one of those people it didn’t work out for, so.”

Jean nods stiffly, staring down at the sketchbook again. He’s tempted to tell Marco that he dropped out of UCLA, but he kind of doubts their situations are in any way similar, so he doesn’t. He just scuffs his toe against the floor and purses his lips, trying to think of literally anything else to say. It would seem that he has a maddening knack for finding awkward spots in their otherwise smooth conversations.

“You can ask, you know,” Marco says suddenly, his voice curiously gentle. “I don’t mind.”

Blinking widely, Jean rubs one hand over the back of his neck and looks up at the brunette, who couldn’t look more relaxed if he tried. “I mean, uh. If you wanna tell me. It’s cool either way.”

Marco hums at that, crossing his legs with a slow nod. “I think I’m okay with you knowing,” he murmurs. “I was an anxious wreck around that age, and school made it, like, a thousand times worse. So I dropped out. That’s pretty much all there was to it.”

Jean tilts his head slightly. “You don’t need a diploma for tattooing?”

“Eh, it really depends.” Marco shrugs lightly. “I got my GED the next year, anyway, so it didn’t matter much.”

“Oh.” Chewing on his lips, Jean struggles to untangle his words, hoping that maybe a better, less awkward response will tumble out. “... Neat.”

After a beat, Jean groans, slapping a hand over his face. Marco just laughs, though, clearly unaffected by Jean’s terrible social skills. “Jean, you’re kinda cute, in your own way.”

Jean huffs loudly, his face bright red, and makes his best effort to not choke to death on his own tongue, nor on his pounding heart. He turns on his heel instead and stomps away down the front aisle, having already made his decision without having to think much about it. If he’s not so great with words, he’ll just have to use something he _is_ good at.

Ducking quickly, he pulls two white camellias out of a small bucket, checking over the soft, plush layers of fat petals for any imperfections before he snags a leafy stem to go with them. He can feel Marco watching him again, quietly curious, but Jean just ignores him for now, before the idea can get him too flustered. Marco continues watching Jean as he trims the stems, then pulls a small, thin glass vase off a shelf and pours some water into it before finally sliding the miniscule arrangement into place. 

He purses his lips thoughtfully, turning the flowers at slightly more complimentary angles and gently spreading the inner petals so the bright yellow bursts of stamen in the centers can shine. 

When he comes back over to Marco, he sets the flowers on the counter in front of him, then crosses his arms tightly and nods, offering no further explanation.

Marco’s smile widens as he takes the flowers in, lightly running his knuckles around the edges of petals. “What’s this?”

Jean’s nostrils flare.

He’d completely forgotten that Marco is fully aware of flowers having a language. If he tells him what they are, and Marco happens across the meaning of white camellias somewhere...

After a brief moment of screaming internally, Jean clears his throat and says, “A thank-you for the drawing. A-and the company.” He shifts his weight again, trying and failing to not fluster outwardly, before he mumbles, “They’re, um. Winter roses.”

Not _technically_ a lie, but not the entire truth, either.

“What do they mean?” Marco asks cheerfully, flicking his gaze back up to Jean’s just as the blonde’s internal screaming rises in volume.

“Uh.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets and rocks back onto his heels, cursing himself for not coming up with an answer before he handed over the damn flowers. Usually he’s better at thinking on his feet than this, but Marco’s smile is softening, and there’s an unfairly attractive twinkle in his eye as he watches Jean flail, and that’s throwing Jean off balance something fierce. “They’re, uh, like an admiring gift for dudes.” He nods stiffly. Also not technically a lie, but further from the truth than before.

“That’s oddly specific,” Marco chuckles, his fingers now curling delicately around the narrow stem of the vase.

“Flowers usually are, yeah.” 

Seemingly content with that answer, Marco thanks Jean warmly for the flowers, and Jean has it in him to thank him again for listening to him. When Marco sneaks back over to his own shop again, it’s with the promise that he’ll visit again and a beaming smile as he slides out into the hazy winter daylight.

Jean sinks back onto his stool again, the shop’s usual quiet seeming to ring in his flushed ears, before he buries his face in his hands and takes a second to try and get his stupid boiling crush under control.

White camellias, in most circles, amount to a big gay _‘I think you’re adorable.’_

\--

Just across the street from Eulalie, the only thing standing between Jean and the chilly Pacific, is a homey little seafood restaurant run by Thomas Wagner and his enormously pregnant sister, Clara. Thom and Clara are both people Jean has known since before he could form sentient thought that didn’t involve drool, but Clara’s husband was imported from somewhere on the East Coast. Jersey or something, Jean can never remember.

At any rate, about a week and a half after dinner at Mina’s, Clara’s baby daughter makes her grand entrance to the world, and Jean wakes up to find himself absolutely _swamped_ with orders. Aside from the holidays, local births are usually the only time he’s truly busy during the quiet season. Of course, old people get sick and die sometimes, but Jean refuses to consider that good business. On account of the whole dead-people thing. It’s morbid.

That afternoon, Jean is elbow-deep in baby pink everything when Thom sheepishly scoots through the door, holding what looks an awful lot like a list of complicated flower arrangements.

“Hey, Jean,” he greets carefully, smoothing down his absurd blonde sideburns as he steps over to the counter. 

“Hmph.”

Being more than used to Jean’s grumpiness, Thom shrugs off the lackluster greeting and accompanying dirty look, instead turning to glance around the store. “Hey, these displays are really nice,” Thom says, and he honestly does sound impressed. He’s always been easy to impress, though. “You do all these yourself?”

“You see anyone else around here?” Jean mumbles, cramming a few springs of baby’s breath into slim, empty spaces where he can find them. 

Thom shrugs, then looks at Jean out of the corner of his eye, obviously churning something over. “Well,” he says hesitantly, fidgeting with his list for a moment. “I did see Mina come in here the other day...”

“Of course you did,” Jean huffs. He does so a little more kindly than before, though, if at all possible. 

The way Thom feels about Mina has never escaped Jean’s notice.

How it has managed to escape Mina’s, on the other hand, is a mystery in and of itself. Thom’s practically been throwing himself over puddles for Mina since the third grade. It’s a bizarre mix of amusing, pathetic, and obnoxious to witness. Which would normally appeal to Mina in a big way, so the plot only grows thicker every time she laughs off his bashful, awkward flirting.

Jean ties a fat pink bow around the vase he’d been working on with a sigh, swiping the back of his hand across his forehead before he gently places the arrangement in a box and moves to put it in one of the fridges. Meanwhile, Thom is still hovering, so Jean squints at him over his shoulder and asks, “Can I help you?”

“Oh, uh. Yeah, if you’re not too busy,” Thom says hopefully, all puppy dog eyes. Jean rolls his, but strides over to him, hand held out expectantly. “These are for the baby’s room,” the shifty blonde continues once he’s forked the paper over, peering over Jean’s shoulder as if double-checking his requests one last time.

“Does a baby really need _this many_ flowers?”

Thom shrugs, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Are you complaining?”

Snorting quietly, Jean reads over the list and mumbles, “When am I not?” He taps his knuckle against his chin, clicking his tongue thoughtfully, then glances around the shop with a grimace. “Christ, Wagner, you want _tulips_ in _November_? Are you trying to give me a hernia?”

“They’re _tulips,_ Jean, how hard can they be to get?”

Jean throws Thom another dirty look, stuffing the list under his arm and pulling out his phone. “I’ll have to order, like, half of this stuff.”

“I know.”

“And it ain’t guaranteed.”

“I know!”

“Don’t say I never told you,” Jean sighs. He blinks up at Thom, who’s inexplicably still hovering, and raises his eyebrows in question.

“Oh, uh,” Thom says, scratching the back of his head. “Can I pay in advance?”

Jean’s brow furrows in confusion. “Why? I know where you live. If you stiff me, I’ll just kill you or something.”

“I’m saving up some money,” Thom explains vaguely, somehow looking even shiftier than he usually does. “Don’t want to get my checkbook all confused if I don’t have to.”

After an awkward pause, consisting mostly of Jean staring deadpan up at Thomas and Thomas resolutely refusing to crumble, Jean shrugs and moves over to the till. Thom waits patiently while Jean adds everything up on his phone, idly pinching his lower lip as he does.

“Mm, okay, should be... two hundred sixteen dollars and thirty-seven cents, good _lord,_ Thomas.” 

Thom shrugs again, cheerfully humming to himself as he pulls out his wallet and digs out a small stack of twenties. When Jean pops open the till, though, he finds himself staring vacantly at the empty space where quarters should be. “Oh, dammit,” he grumbles, looking under the drawer for more rolls and finding none. “Knew I forgot to do something today... Thom, you got thirty-seven cents?”

“Uh...” Thom rifles around in his pockets for a moment, then aims an apologetic look at Jean. 

“Hope you like dimes,” Jean sighs, handing Thom his change with a huff. 

“Thanks a bunch, Jean,” Thom says, offering him a clearly grateful smile. “You’re a peach.”

Jean wrinkles his nose at that. “Never say those words to me, Wagner.”

“Call me whenever they’re ready, yeah?”

“Sure, sure.” Thom nods, then turns and leaves, an obvious pep in his step as he jogs across the empty street to his restaurant. Taping Thom’s order to the register, where he can’t possibly forget about it, Jean looks down at his phone again and grimaces at the time. Too late to run to the bank today, it seems.

Sighing slowly, Jean purses his lips and leans his hip against the counter, allowing himself a brief break to contemplate quarters. They can probably wait until tomorrow morning, honestly.

After a few minutes, he has an idea. Probably a stupid idea, but it’s been more than a year since he set foot into the shop next door anyway. Hell, maybe Marco’s working today. It’s all in the name of business, he tells himself as he pulls a twenty out of the till, then locks it down and throws his apron under the counter.

\--

Despite being directly attached to Jean’s Eulalie, the tattoo parlor next door has an entirely different sort of aesthetic, as one would expect. Luckily, Titan Ink is a fairly classy establishment, enough so that Jean doesn’t despise sharing a building with it. 

It’s warm inside the shop, certainly warmer than he’d expected, and brightly-lit enough to be welcoming all on its own. Of course, Marco sitting at the front desk definitely strengthens that feeling, especially when he looks up from his sketchbook and sees Jean, immediately beaming at him in that way he does that just makes everything that much warmer.

“Jean, hi!” he chirps, hopping down off his stool and brushing his sketchbook aside. “How’s things?”

Jean stuffs his hands in his pockets and meanders over to the desk, mumbling something noncommittal in return before he glances down and notices that Paul’s sitting at the desk as well. He’s hunched intently over a coloring book, carefully giving a pretty mermaid a host of interesting tattoos. “Bring your kid to work day?”

“Sort of,” Marco laughs sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. “There’s apparently some kind of district-wide teacher meeting happening instead of school, so he’s been hanging out with me today.”

“You let him do any work?” Jean teases, leaning over to investigate Paul’s mermaid.

“I’m really thinking about letting him tattoo a cupcake on my hand, actually,” Marco admits. “Kid draws a _stellar_ cupcake.” He reaches over and lightly pokes Paul in the shoulder to get his attention, then asks, “Hey, you wanna show Jean that awesome Cinderella you did before lunch?”

Paul heaves a loud, dramatic artist sigh at being interrupted, but he still flips quickly through his fat coloring book until he finds the right page. He blinks up at Jean and hands him the book, then hops down off his stool and wanders around the counter to stand next to him, hovering much like Thomas had earlier. “I think Waldo likes desserts the most,” Paul explains with a sniff. “He always puts my dessert drawings up on the fridge.”

“Oh yeah?” Jean laughs, before he crouches down and spreads the coloring book over his bony knees. He taps his chin thoughtfully, taking in the wide array of (rather impressive) dessert tattoos scrawled all up and down Cinderella’s arms and chest, until Paul helpfully points to the specific cupcake Marco had taken a liking to. Jean hums, tilting his head and examining it more closely, before he says, “I mean, I can’t lie to you, man. That’s a fancy cupcake.”

Squinting at Jean again, Paul props his hands on his hips and asks, “What does ‘heathens’ mean?”

Jean snorts loudly. Paul is clearly more Mina than he’d initially thought. “A heathen is what your mother calls people who don’t think math is as fun as she does.”

“But what does it _mean_?”

“Ummm...” Jean squints one eye shut, trying to think of an age-appropriate definition, and one that wouldn’t raise a whole slew of other awkward questions at that. “I guess... uncivilized?”

Paul pokes his lower lip out in thought. “Like a bar-BEAR-yun?”

“Good lord,” Jean mumbles, wheezing out a surprised laugh. “Quite the vocabulary on you. Yeah, like a barbarian.”

With a satisfied nod, Paul puffs his chest out and announces, “You and Waldo are _heathens._ ” He pauses, then nods again, apparently liking the sound of the word. “Cupcake heathens.”

“I’m okay with that,” Marco supplies from above, having half-crawled onto the desk so he could lean over and observe Jean and Paul. “How about you, Jean?”

“There are worse things to be,” Jean chuckles. He turns back to Paul and offers him the coloring book, asking, “Do you have something you’re more proud of than cupcakes?”

“Lizards!” Paul grabs the book and excitedly flips through the pages again, then stuffs a brightly-colored Jasmine in Jean’s face. “I like lizards.”

“I see,” Jean snickers, his voice muffled by the binding of the book. He eases it away from his face enough that he can see Paul’s lizards, then gives an impressed hum, leaning back further to get a better look. “Wow, yeah, these are really good, Paul.” Paul grins proudly, all crooked child teeth, and while Jean absorbs the motley array of lizards crawling on and around Jasmine, Paul turns and walks back behind the counter again, apparently content with Jean’s appraisal.

Jean stands up straight then, wincing as his knees crack, and Marco grins up at him from waist-level and takes his time sliding back down off the counter, which Jean patently refuses to read into. He hands the coloring book back to Paul, who goes right back to the page he was coloring when Jean came in.

“So, Jean,” Marco hums, casually lacing his fingers atop his head. “What brings you in?”

“Oh, right, right...” Jean looks around for a second, then pulls the folded twenty out of his pocket and says, “Uh, well. I _was_ gonna ask if I could buy some quarters from you guys.”

Shooting Jean an apologetic smile, Marco shakes his head and says, “Sorry, we don’t really deal in coinage around here...”

“Yeah, I don’t know why I thought you would.” Cramming the bill back in his pocket, Jean runs a hand through his hair and laughs awkwardly, earning himself a bright smile. “Oh well.”

The sound of Paul’s rapid coloring comes to a halt, and he blinks thoughtfully up at Marco, who just raises his eyebrows in question. “Mina has a jar of quarters in the den, right?”

Marco winces slightly. “She does, yes. Also, dude, we talked about this... she’s your _mom_ , yeah?”

Paul frowns back down at his coloring book, his brow furrowing. “She never was before...”

Sighing slowly, Marco sinks back onto his stool and drags his hands down his face. “I mean, she _did_ give birth to you.”

“So?” Paul drops his crayon and crosses his arms, aiming his deepening frown up at Marco. “You said it yourself—”

“Paul—”

“You said it! ‘Mothers kiss their kids goodnight and good morning, _not_ goodbye!’”

Something in Jean’s chest clenches, then turns to ice.

Marco groans, raking his hands through his hair. “And I’ve told you, I never should’ve said it, right? It was mean, and—”

“It’s not true, either.” Paul and Marco both look at Jean then, both surprised by the sudden seriousness in his voice. Jean just glares at the floor, swallowing heavily, unable to make eye contact with either of them. “That isn’t true.”

“Jean?” Marco asks softly.

Jean clears his throat and stuffs his hands in his pockets, then takes a deep breath. “Some women kiss their kids goodnight and good morning, but they aren’t mothers.” His throat tightens on his next words, so he clears it again, then once more so he can continue. “And some mothers _have_ to kiss their kids goodbye. So it isn’t true.”

Sucking nervously on his lip, Paul lowers his gaze to his coloring book and mumbles a tiny apology, while Marco’s guilt becomes more and more apparent.

“Jean, I—” Marco leans forward, reaching out as if to touch Jean’s arm, but he hesitates before he makes contact.

Shaking his head firmly to clear it, Jean clears his throat again and looks somewhere past Marco’s ear. “Sorry. Uh, thanks anyway, about the quarters.”

“Um... sure.”

Jean nods stiffly, then turns on his heel and walks out.

It’s raining again.

\--

A few hours later, it’s fully dark out, and Jean’s still working on Clara’s endless floral gifts from what feels like every living human in the state of Oregon. He locked up the shop a while ago, once he’d spent some quality silent time in the small office back by the fridges, but he still has too much work to do to go home just yet.

Besides, after the turn the conversation had taken next door, Jean’s not exactly itching to return to his dark, empty house.

The soft orange glow from the streetlights pouring in through the large front window makes for sufficient enough lighting, so he hadn’t bothered turning on the overhead fluorescents. The light they give off is too artificial, anyway, not at all complimentary to the carefully chosen gradients that make up the displays, and the buzzing hum they emit gives him a headache. Even worse, when he’s been crying, that ice-white light makes the puffy redness under Jean’s eyes starkly apparent. 

The rain had picked up as the daylight faded, and it’s coming down hard enough that Jean almost doesn’t hear the doorknob turning, then catching on the lock. It clicks softly a few times, though, enough to draw his attention, and when he glances up, he finds a rain-damp Marco tapping his knuckles on the glass and peering guiltily at him.

Taking a deep breath, Jean puts down his scissors and crosses to the door, unlocking it and pulling it open just long enough for Marco to slide in out of the downpour.

“Hey, sorry,” Marco mumbles, shaking out his dripping bangs, “I know you’re closed and all...”

“Still here, aren’t I?” Jean grumbles. As he strides back to the bouquet he’s making, he tries his best not to take out his grief on Marco, who doesn’t know anything about him or this shop. It’s an uphill battle at best. “What’s up, you break another vase?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” Marco replies steadily. He crosses to the counter and waits for Jean to look at him again, seemingly unconcerned for the way he’s still dripping slightly on the tile floor.

Jean quirks an eyebrow in question, then drops his gaze to the flowers again. “Where’s Paul?”

“Eren’s shift started at six. He’s keeping an eye on him for me.”

“Oh, god,” Jean snorts, shaking his head at the thought. “He’s gonna learn a whole bunch of fun new words while you’re in here.”

Marco breathes a soft laugh. “Jean, I’ve been raising my kid in _tattoo parlors_.” Jean glances up at him through his eyelashes, watching him loosely cross his arms. “There’s nothing under the sun he hasn’t already heard.”

“Have you _met_ Eren?”

“He’s delightful,” Marco murmurs, edging slightly toward the open end of the counter, just enough to let on that he’s intent on approaching hugging distance, but enough that if Jean’s expression sours at that idea, Marco will still have time to escape the shears the blonde’s wielding. Jean purses his lips, but keeps his expression carefully neutral anyway. He should’ve figured that Marco would be the hugging type.

Jean sighs quietly, pulling a generic glass vase from a drawer in the counter, but he doesn’t really have any input to the conversation beyond that. That suits Marco just fine, apparently, based on the way he slowly, cautiously steps around the end of the counter, leaving a good bit of elbow room between them.

“I, um,” Marco starts, fidgeting restlessly. “I wanted to come apologize. For earlier.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jean murmurs. “Neither of you meant anything by it. It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” the brunette insists, his fingers curling up the edge of a random slip of paper they happen across, another nervous habit of his. “I just—” Swallowing heavily, Marco turns to look out the window at the pouring rain, his teeth digging into his lip. “I wanted you to know that what Paul said—that _is_ something that I said to him. I taught him that. But I didn’t mean to, and I’ve regretted it ever since.” Marco sighs slowly, flicking his eyes back to what he can see of Jean’s face. “I was in kind of a bad place when I said that. I shouldn’t have. I just—I had no idea he’d hold onto it so damn tight, you know?”

Breathing out a huffed exhale, Jean stops messing with the flowers he’d crammed into the vase and braces his hands on the edge of the counter. “Marco...”

“I have no idea what I’m doing, Jean,” Marco breathes, his mute voice almost pleading as he inches closer, close enough now that Jean can feel warmth radiating from under his wet hoodie. “I’m not used to people holding onto my words like that, not at all. I had no clue. Every time he asked me why he didn’t have a mom, I had _no idea_ what to say, until he asked me again one day and I was—I was sad and angry and lonely and that crap is what came out, and then he never let it go.”

Jean takes a deep breath and turns to face Marco, but anything he could’ve thought to say dies in his throat when he realizes exactly how close Marco is to him now. All he can do is swallow heavily, staring wide-eyed up at him.

His fingers still folding tiny, compulsive creases into the corner of the paper on the counter, Marco takes another small step forward, but when Jean leans back slightly, he backs off again, seeming to shrink guiltily as his gaze falls to the floor between them.

“I’m sorry, Jean,” he murmurs after a long moment, the quiet thought punctuated by the low rumble of rolling ocean thunder. “I don’t—I don’t know what kinds of things you carry inside you, but I _hated_ seeing something stupid I said make you so upset. S-so I’m sorry. I really am.” Teeth digging into his lip again, Marco blinks up at Jean through his dripping bangs. “But I’m trying to be better. You can count on that. I’m doing my best. That’s why I agreed to move up here at all.”

Jean swallows again, sucking on his lips and searching Marco’s gaze. What for, he has no idea. Anything and nothing. Something to say.

He wants to ask why Marco thinks so poorly of himself that he’d drop everything and move to a tiny little coastal village a thousand miles from home.

He wants to ask if Marco loves Mina, or if he even could.

More than anything else, though, Jean wants to ask Marco to kiss him, and he cannot for the life of him understand exactly _why_. Why here, why now, why during this conversation... he’s clueless.

All he knows is that his lips are _burning_ , and that Marco’s close enough to touch, to hold, and that those big brown eyes now shimmer with the perfect reflection of Jean’s paralyzing fear of being alone, and that if Marco doesn’t look away or walk away soon, things are going to get out of hand. Jean only has so much self-control, especially when he’s like this, so badly in need of physical reassurance.

He digs his sharp canine into his lip in hopes of finding some restraint, willing Marco to at least _blink_ , and when he opens his mouth, the heavy truth spills from between his lips like paint.

“M-my mom died,” he stammers, his hands curling into loose fists.

Marco finally does blink then, tilting his head slightly, before he whispers, “Oh.”

Jean nods quickly, stepping back again, but he only makes it a few inches before his back meets the cool wall between their shops. “Y-yeah, um. Two years ago. Plus a few weeks.” He clears his throat, his brow furrowing as his gaze falls to Marco’s chest, finally relieved of whatever pained magnetism had kept them locked in orbit moments ago. “She was—we were really close. Always were. I kind of knew it was coming, but I still wasn’t—I-I wasn’t okay when it happened. I’m still kind of not.”

“Jean...”

Crossing his arms tightly across his chest, Jean turns to look out at the window, not bothering to wipe away the tears already pooling in his eyes. He knows from experience that it’s more trouble than it’s worth to stop the waterworks once they’ve started. “I went to college when Mina did, and a few others from around here. B-but I dropped out after a year and a half. My mom got sick, too sick to run the shop. This shop. And it had just been me and her f-for as long as I could remember, so I dropped out and moved back home to take over for her when it got too hard on her. A-and then a few years l-later, s-s-she was g-gone.” 

Jean gnaws on his lip and sniffles loudly, curling in on himself a little tighter. Marco stays silent, giving Jean the space he needs to get it all out.

“I—u-um. I was with her w-when she passed,” he whispers, fisting his hands in his sleeves. “S-she kissed me goodbye b-before she—before—”

“Oh, fuck,” Marco groans mutely, averting his gaze and covering his mouth with one shaky hand as he bows his head in shame, his regret almost painfully obvious.

Nodding stiffly, Jean turns away more and digs a crumpled paper towel out of his apron pocket, one undoubtedly covered in sticky plant sap. He uses it to wipe his nose anyway, taking a minute to steady his breathing with deep, counted breaths, until he can inhale without his chest hitching or trembling.

He furrows his brow in thought, tossing the paper towel into his trash bucket, then turns to Marco again and mumbles, “I’ve never actually _told_ anyone that story.” Marco peers up at him, eyebrows raised, one hand still covering his lips. Jean shrugs and shakes his head, the realization becoming more clear. “Yeah, no... never said the words.” Pausing to take another steadying breath, Jean blinks out at the rain for a moment longer. “I never had to before. Everyone just knew, I guess. I mean, I was the only one who was there then, but—I never had to _tell_ anyone what happened.”

Marco pulls his hand away from his face then, tilting his head slightly. “Are you, um. Are you okay?”

“I dunno,” Jean muses softly, idly wiping tears off his cheeks. “It’s weird. Before you came along, I just kind of lived day to day without thinking about it, but... it’s _weird_.” Jean shrugs again, turning to look up at Marco. “Stories here belong to everyone, I guess. You never get to explain yourself, or to explain anything that happens here because everyone already knows the whole story before you get the chance.” Jean taps his chin thoughtfully for a moment before he continues. “I think that’s why everyone went so crazy when you showed up. No one knew your story, and since no one’s ever had to explain anything around here, no one knew how to explain you.”

“ _I_ don’t even know how to explain me,” Marco murmurs, wheezing out a soft, emotional laugh.

“Well, then you fit right in,” Jean chuckles, loosely crossing his arms again with a crooked, tearstained smile.

Still fidgeting restlessly, Marco stands up straight then, his gaze flicking from the wall above Jean’s head to the window and back again, before he breathes, “I don’t—I don’t know what’s going through my head right now.”

“What?”

Marco buries his face in his hands and takes a step back, obviously frazzled. After a moment, he scrubs his palms over his cheeks and groans, turning to face the window as if hoping against hope that the windswept rain has some clarity for him. “I’m sorry, I just—I don’t know.” He glances at Jean out of the corners of his eyes, his hands cupped over his nose and mouth, before he squeezes his eyes shut and cards his fingers through his mussed, on-end hair. 

Obviously concerned, Jean rests one hand on Marco’s shoulder, trying to lean close enough to catch his eyes again. “Marco, are you okay?”

“Yes, I think so,” Marco replies, before he laces his fingers on top of his head and says, “I mean. Yes? Maybe.”

“Dude, you’re freaking me out.”

“I-I’m sorry.” Shaking his head roughly, Marco smooths his hair down and takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry, I am.” He turns to Jean then and moves closer, and before Jean knows what’s happening, Marco’s wrapping his arms around Jean’s shoulders and pulling him into a warm hug, burying his face in messy blonde hair. “I’m sorry, I’m just kind of fried... thank you for telling me about your mom, Jean, really. And I’m so sorry for what happened earlier.”

Jean still has no idea what’s happening, if he’s honest. Having never told that story, Jean couldn’t have predicted any outcome, let alone one that would leave him folded tight against Marco’s chest, breathing in the subtle scent of his skin, of rain and fabric softener and what might be tattoo ink, but could just as easily just be more skin. He just lets it happen, though, because Marco is so goddamn warm, and because this is an outrageously high-quality hug that he desperately needed, and maybe also because the comforting feeling of Marco’s shivery breath ruffling his hair is almost enough to have Jean’s eyes rolling back into his head, his body melting further into the embrace whether he okays it or not.

They stay like this for longer than is probably prudent, but if he’s not reading too far into it, Jean could almost swear that Marco needs this as badly as he does.

Once they’ve awkwardly separated from each other, each taking a good step back and looking away, Jean gets it together enough to hand his phone to Marco and ask for his number, which he is more than happy to provide. They exchange numbers, text each other just to make sure, and then Marco bashfully slinks out from behind the counter and toward the door, muttering something nonsensical about getting back to work, while Jean mutters something equally nonsensical about making more bouquets.

When Jean finally locks the door behind Marco, watching him duck through the rain and back into his own shop, he takes a long moment to lean his forehead against the door, close his eyes, and just breathe.

\--

As it turns out, Marco is one of those ridiculous people who sends oh-so-casual ‘good morning’ and ‘goodnight’ texts, as if Jean wasn’t hopelessly fucking in love with him enough as it was. 

Days crawl by like this, and the more time passes, the more Jean can’t fight it anymore. 

He has it _bad_.

It takes a heaping mess of sweat and overtime, but Jean manages to get all of Clara’s baby flowers done by the time she and her shiny new daughter come home, up to and including Thom’s needlessly obnoxious special orders. 

When Thom comes by to pick everything up, he grimaces at the sheer amount of baby pink, but all Jean has for him is a lame shrug.

“You could come by and help arrange them, if you want,” Thom offers from behind a particularly artful array of fragrant pink roses, raising his bushy eyebrows just enough that they clear the top of the bouquet. Jean snickers at the sight, not bothering to disguise the sound.

“No thanks,” he replies, more than content to keep his ass parked on his stool. “I’ve seen enough baby pink to last a lifetime. God forbid anyone else in this town pop out another daughter.”

“I hear Sam’s wife is expecting!”

Jean groans, tilting his head back dramatically. “You just live to ruin my day, don’t you.”

“Don’t be so grouchy.” 

Propping his chin in his palm, Jean lazily watches Thom make trips between the shop and his SUV, back and forth and back and forth until Jean starts feeling vaguely motion-sick. There’s no way any one woman could need so many flowers.

So, bored with Thom’s endless looping, Jean turns his thoughts to Marco instead. Not like he has to try very hard; that’s where they always end up anyway, whether he likes it or not.

It’s been a week since they exchanged phone numbers, and Marco hasn’t failed to send Jean a good morning or a goodnight even once. It’s absurd. The times at which he sends them are wildly variable, of course, and occasionally worrisome, but somehow, Jean likes the idea that he always knows when Marco’s going to sleep and when he wakes up.

Which, of course, makes him feel like a _major_ creep, but it’s not like Marco’s sending said information unwillingly. 

Jean really hates to say it, but he’s starting to suspect that Marco’s either oblivious or about as straight as they come, both of which are horrifying and depressing at the same time. Unfortunately, it’s also probably a good thing; Jean keeps having to remind himself that Marco is _Mina’s_ guy, until they both clearly state otherwise. He just doesn’t have it in him to be a homewrecker.

Even so, as far as Jean can tell, Marco’s still sleeping on Paul’s floor and not in Mina’s bed. If they’re romantically involved at all, it’s extremely low-key, which seems wildly out of character for Mina, to say the very least. 

Sighing loudly, Jean slumps further over his counter, gloomily watching Thom make the last trip to his truck with that bulletproof pep still present in his step. He comes back in once he’s all loaded up, but doesn’t spare Jean’s misery more than a raised eyebrow, instead jingling his keys and chirping, “So.”

“Don’t tell me you want more tulips, Wagner.”

“Nah, not right now,” Thom hums. “They all paid off and everything?”

Jean sighs again, digging the heel of his hand into his cheek. “I dunno. Probably. If they’re not, I’ll just throw rocks through some of your windows to cover the difference.”

Thom nods at that, once again riding the weird line between absolute obliviousness and an ironclad poker face. “Hey, I wanted to ask you...” Jean raises his eyebrows in question. “D’you know what’s going on with Mina and that L.A. guy? Like, are they...?” Thom crosses two of his fingers vaguely.

“I hate you, Thomas Wagner,” Jean groans, folding his arms on the counter and burying his face in them.

“I don’t know if that answers my question.”

Jean wheedles miserably, burying his face deeper in his elbows. “I don’t _know_ , you ass. Why don’t you go ask her yourself and let me know.”

There’s a weird pause at that, weird enough to coax Jean into peeking one eye up at Thom. “Maybe I will,” Thom says finally, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I’ve been thinkin’ about it, anyway.”

Sitting up straight, Jean quirks an eyebrow at Thom and crosses his arms, doubt seeping out of every inch of his posture. Well-deserved doubt, too, given how many times Thom’s sworn up and down that he was gonna go be straight with Mina, and how many times he’s chickened out. “Oh really.”

“Yeah.” Thom shifts his weight and sniffs slightly, turning to look over at Jean’s rather depleted stock. “When that fella first moved in, she was all bubbles and sunshine, but lately she’s been... I dunno. A little cloudy.”

“You’re a poet, Thom,” Jean grumbles, nothing more venomous than is usual for them. “You think they’re not...?”

“I dunno, that’s why I wanted to ask.”

Jean taps his knuckle against his chin with a hum, furrowing his brow at the counter. 

There’s an opportunity here. Arguably, Thom and Mina would be much happier together than not, and Jean likes to think that he and Marco could make a pretty good pair given the chance, and given some flexibility in Marco’s sexuality. 

However, it’s not really his place to play around in the workings of other people’s lives, especially in this town where _nothing_ goes unnoticed. Aside from estranged babies, that is.

Mina wanted to build something with Marco, for her own sake and for that of her son. And Marco, for whatever reason, was willing to give it a try. It might still be too soon to tell, but it seems like things haven’t exactly been falling into place as planned. Maybe the gears need a little help of some sort.

 _But_ , it is unequivocally fucked up to mess around in _other people’s_ gears.

After a minute of heavy thought, Jean sighs loudly and reluctantly lets it go.

“I don’t know, Thom,” he mumbles, leaning his elbows on the counter again. “I got nothing. Sorry.”

Raising his thick eyebrows, Thom looks Jean over for a minute, then asks, “What’s up your ass today?” Jean just gives him an absolutely filthy look in response, unwilling to dignify the question with anything more involved than a sneer. Thom screws his lips to one side, then deflates, his tentative confidence going flat like a whoopie cushion. 

“Oh, _Christ_ , Thom,” Jean groans, his frown deepening. “Why don’t you just go _ask_ her, for god’s sake? She doesn’t bite. Much.”

Thom sighs quietly, idly chewing on his nails before he responds. “Don’t know if I wanna know the answer.”

Jean doesn’t know if he’s ever commiserated with anything more in his entire life.

\--

That weekend, Jean invites Marco over for dinner, beers, and movies, biting his tongue furiously on anything even slightly resembling a ‘Netflix and chill’ joke. He spends the morning obsessively cleaning his house, even the rooms that he hasn’t been in for months, opening the curtains and dusting and vacuuming until his house finally resembles a home, instead of a depressed bachelor cave.

It totally pays off.

“Wow, your house is really nice, Jean,” Marco muses once he’s gotten himself situated on the couch, looking around the living room while Jean fishes his carefully-crafted homemade pizza out of the oven. “It looks like it was actually built by human hands. It’s a nice change from the drunk wood elf chic.”

Jean has to laugh at that. “Yeah, I don’t know what the fuck happened with Mina’s house. I’m pretty sure it was designed by that guy that built the murder hotel.”

“It’s entirely possible. There are probably trap doors hidden all over the place.”

Once Jean’s joined Marco on the couch, armed with pizza and a bottle opener, he crosses his legs under himself and turns on the TV. “So, I have Netflix and, like, one game on the PS4,” he says, raising an eyebrow at Marco.

“Which game?” is what Jean _thinks_ Marco says, but it’s hard to tell around an impressive mouthful of pizza. He snorts, rolling his eyes at Marco’s chipmunk cheeks, which are definitely _not_ stupidly adorable.

“Until Dawn, what else.”

“Oh, good choice,” Marco might say, now covering his still-stuffed mouth with one hand. “You finish it?”

“As finished as it could possibly get,” Jean replies. “Pretty sure I know that game better than the developers by now.” He’s only bragging a little.

Marco chuckles, then swallows heavily, and the fact that he doesn’t choke to death is both impressive and mildly uncomfortable for Jean. “It’s a good game for completionists, yeah. Well, what does Netflix have for us?”

“A whole lot of distressing gay dramas, currently,” Jean grumbles, poking at the PS4 controller to open Netflix. “I may have binge-watched, like, fourteen of them in a row. It was horrible.”

“Why horrible?”

Jean stares at Marco, eyebrows raised. “Dude, have you ever _seen_ a gay movie?”

Pausing to think, Marco idly sips his beer, then shakes his head. “Not aside from, like, Brokeback Mountain.”

“Okay, well.” Jean shifts to face Marco on the couch, his expression absolutely grim. “You know how the ending of Brokeback Mountain kind of killed you inside, because no one was happy or alive and everything was terrible?” Marco grimaces, then nods. “Yeah, that’s like, _all_ gay cinema.”

Marco’s brow furrows. “What?”

“They _all_ end horribly, dude, it’s a soul-killer.”

“But...” His frown deepening, Marco turns to look at the colorful array of movies on the screen. “But _why_?”

Jean shrugs loudly. “Hell if I know. It’s like winning the fucking lottery if you find one that ends happily, and without anyone dying at the last second.”

Shaking his head sadly, Marco leans forward and snags another piece of pizza from the plate on the coffee table, aiming his puppy-dog frown at the drooping, stringy cheese. “That’s awful,” he mumbles. “I thought gay people were happy.”

“Yeah, you’d think.” Jean slumps back into the couch, sniffing disdainfully. “If you go by the movies, apparently we’re all either doomed to misery or just generally doomed. Sometimes both.”

Marco looks up at the screen again, lifting his pizza and ducking his head to catch the ever-lengthening cheese, before he points at an icon featuring a pair of young men on a colorful background. “What about that one? Second row, three from the left. That looks happy.”

“Oh god,” Jean groans, his dismay extremely apparent. “That one’s fucking _awful._ Everything is fine for, like, most of the movie, and then at the end the one dude cheats on the other for no reason and they both swear off love forever.” 

“That sucks,” Marco says around a mouthful of pepperoni. “Like, really sucks.” He looks at the screen again, eyes narrowed, then points at another one. “What about that one? The pink one, bottom row.”

Jean shakes his head mournfully. “They break up at the end for no real reason.”

Marco groans, finishing off his slice of pizza before he says, “That’s really lame.”

“Yeah, and you’re not even gay,” Jean mumbles, poking at the controller to scroll down a few rows, mostly just to seem casual. “Imagine how I feel.” The most response he gets to that is a neutral hum, though, and rather than push it, Jean just considers himself lucky that Marco didn’t loudly agree.

He scrolls lazily for a while, munching idly on some pizza of his own, waiting for something to appeal to either himself or Marco. If not for having company, this would be shockingly similar to how Jean usually spends his nights, which is more comforting than it should be. 

“This pizza’s really good,” Marco says at some point, fighting with gravity over his cheese again. “Where’d you get it? I haven’t been able to find reasonable pizza anywhere around here.”

It’s not even that serious a compliment, but Jean still has butterflies. Puffing his chest out proudly, Jean grins crookedly and replies, “I made it.” 

“Wow, really?” Marco gives him a genuinely impressed look, then looks back down at his slice, almost as if seeing it in a new light. “Wow,” he repeats. “That’s really cool, Jean. It’s awesome, thank you for making it.”

Jean waves his hand casually, hoping to distract from the flush that he can feel rising on his face. “Don’t mention it.”

“No, seriously,” Marco continues, turning to look at Jean again. “Can you teach me sometime? And Paul? I-if it’s not, like, a secret family recipe or something. I think he’d dig it.”

Laughing softly, Jean scratches his cheek and nods. “Yeah, that’d be cool.”

“I think so, yeah.” Marco hums contently, settling into the couch once more with a pleased smile.

Thanks to their mutual laziness, it takes them the entire pizza, a beer apiece, and something like forty-five minutes to finally decide on a movie, and even then, neither of them are entirely invested in what they’re watching. Watching the movie turns to talking about the movie, which quickly becomes just plain talking, and before Jean realizes it, one beer has turned to five, and it’s significantly later than either of them had realized.

Time slipped past them so easily, and for once, it’s not because Jean was running on autopilot. They’d told stories in turn, from their wildly different childhoods and family lives, from school and after school and work, funny ones and stupid ones and maybe a spare few sad ones. Conversation with Marco tends to flow like water, Jean’s learning, and it’s such a warm feeling that he really doesn’t want to stop. Marco gives and takes in equal measure to Jean’s own rhythm, meeting him and matching him perfectly, words coming in steady waves of talking and listening, of learning about each other in turns.

It only makes him want to be closer to Marco, as close as he can possibly get without ruining everything.

On his way to drop his and Marco’s last few empty bottles in the recycling, Jean runs into the doorway to the kitchen with a noisy _thud_ , followed by a grumbled curse. He’s just turning to dig another two beers out of the fridge when he catches sight of the clock on the oven.

“Shit, Marco,” he calls, waiting for Marco’s hummed reply to continue, “It’s three in the morning.”

“Oh, damn,” Marco mumbles eloquently. “When did that happen?”

Jean makes a baffled sound, forgoing the beer and instead weaving back into the living room, collapsing onto the couch with a _whuff_. He looks over at Marco, watching the brunette squint at his phone’s bright screen with a snicker, before he asks, “You gotta call Mina?”

“Nah, I told her not to wait up,” Marco mumbles, dropping his phone onto the couch. “She was stoked to spend the evening with Paul, anyway, I doubt she’s too interested in what I’m up to.” He drags his hands down his face, sinking further into the cushions, then laces them atop his head, his gaze trained vacantly on the TV screen. 

“I dunno about that,” Jean mutters finally, bending his legs up so he can rest his chin on his bony knee. Marco blinks at him and quirks a curious eyebrow, so Jean shrugs and lowers his eyes to the couch cushion, picking idly at a loose thread. “I think she’s probably super interested in what you get into.”

Sighing quietly, Marco rubs the nape of his neck for a minute while he ponders that. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

Jean bites the bullet. “What’s up with you two, anyway?”

Marco shrugs heavily, then turns and gives him a crooked smile, his eyes lingering on Jean’s for just a beat too long before they fall to the thread Jean’s playing with. “Don’t even know what the question means.”

“Yes you do, you boob,” Jean snorts, reaching a foot out and poking Marco’s thigh with his toes. “It means, are you two _together_ , or what?”

After a long moment spent mulling the question over, Marco runs his hand through his hair and shrugs again, then hums, “I dunno. Not as far as I know.”

“Really?”

“Nope.” Marco sighs slowly, blinking up at the ceiling, his lips pursed thoughtfully. “I don’t know that I’m really her type, nor is she mine. She’s really good with Paul, though. Loves that boy to pieces.” He hums again, briefly glancing at Jean out of the corner of his eye, the movement barely a dark flicker beneath his thick eyelashes. “I, um. I don’t love her.”

Jean tilts his head at that, ignoring the way his selfish heart skips a beat. “No?” Marco shakes his head, then shyly makes eye contact again, his teeth finding his lip. “Does she love you?”

“She loves Paul,” Marco murmurs. “That’s all I’d hoped for.”

Sighing softly, Jean raises his eyebrows and says, “Not anything else, though.”

His brow furrowing in confusion, Marco turns more toward Jean and tilts his head. “What d’you mean?”

Jean shrugs, shifting to cross his legs under him again. “When I talked to her after the gladioli, she said she was hoping you guys could be something.”

“Ah.” Marco wet his lips with his tongue, staring at the ceiling again. “I mean, I got that, yeah. But it’s been less and less that, if that makes sense. Like, we don’t have a whole lot of common ground, you know.”

“You guys had to have _something_ ,” Jean mumbles. “She carried your kid.”

Marco snorts softly, scratching the back of his head as he squints one eye at Jean. “You wanna know the whole thing?”

Jean perks up, obviously interested, which wrings a quiet laugh out of Marco. “I mean,” Jean mutters, trying to regain his cool. “If you’re okay telling it to me.”

“I think so, yeah,” Marco hums, lowering his gaze to where he’s playing with his hoodie zipper, his fingers restless. “Hmm... well, to start with, the only common ground we had when we met was a _massive_ amount of alcohol. So let’s get that out of the way.”

“... Oh.”

“Yeah.” Marco shrugs, then laces his fingers behind his head and slouches further into the couch, one leg starting to bounce slightly. “We met at a party, we hooked up at a party, and that was just about that. It was really stupid of us both. Me especially. Anyway, a month passed, and then she tracked me down through a mutual friend and told me she was pregnant.” He chuckles quietly, squeezing his eyes shut, and mumbles, “I may or may not have passed out.”

Jean tries not to snort and distinctly fails, but Marco just throws him a crooked grin in response. “Really?”

“Yeah, dude, I was _petrified_. Twenty years old, on top of the world, and then I swear I felt everything just come tumbling down around us. It was super weird. For a second, it was just me, her, and oblivion.” Marco pauses and runs a hand down his face with a groan. “That probably sounds stupid, huh.”

“I dunno,” Jean mumbles. “Not really.”

Marco breathes a quiet, appreciative hum before he continues his story. “Anyway, I fell over, and once the world stopped spinning, I asked her if she was gonna keep it. She said she wasn’t really okay with the idea of getting an abortion, and I said okay, and then we just kind of... stared at each other.” Exhaling slowly, Marco pauses to collect his thoughts again, his leg starting to jitter again. “We hung out a lot while she was pregnant. It was mostly her studying and me just staring at her.” 

“Romantic,” Jean snickers, leaning his head in his hand.

“I mean, it kind of was, in a weird way.” Marco licks his lips, then squints over at Jean and says, “You ever hear of pheromones?” Jean raises his eyebrows, but nods. “Yeah, I think she was giving off some crazy pregnancy pheromones or something, because I was head over heels for her for nine months.”

“No shit?”

“Yeah. I was bonkers. It didn’t matter that we had literally _nothing_ in common, or that she wanted to teach high school math and that I dropped out when I was sixteen, or that we met at a party that was too loud for us to even talk to each other before we hooked up. None of that bothered me, not when I looked at that belly.” Sighing slowly, Marco moves to chew on his thumbnail. “She gave birth to Paul a few days after my birthday, in June. I held her hand the whole time. It was god-awful and some sort of miracle simultaneously, I swear. Nightmare fuel.”

“Wow, Marco,” Jean snorts, “You sure know how to sell the miracle of childbirth.”

“No, dude, it was awful,” Marco insists, his eyebrows shooting up. “Blood and screaming and I don’t even want to tell you what else. I can’t imagine anyone doing it willingly, let alone coming out wanting to do it all over again.”

Jean hums at that, conceding Marco’s point. 

“Anyway,” Marco says, “She lived with me over the summer, and we talked a few times about getting shotgun married or something.” He pauses again, shaking his head slowly, his teeth digging into his sore-looking thumbnail again. Jean reaches out and delicately pushes his hand away from his mouth, and Marco lets him, his hand dropping into his lap instead. “She wanted to finish her degree, and I was cool with that, but over the summer we kind of... I dunno. Like, I still worshiped the ground she walked on, but I didn’t _love her_ love her the way I did, you know? We were just so different, and I didn’t know what to do about it anymore.” 

Marco takes a deep breath and scrubs his hands over his lips, casting a shifty glance at Jean, at which Jean just raises his eyebrows in question. “The next part, uh,” Marco mutters, digging his hand into his hair, “I feel kinda awful talking about it, because it’s... rough. For a few reasons.”

“Uh,” is about all Jean can think to say.

Shrugging again, Marco pulls his hoodie sleeves down and crosses his arms tightly, obviously uncomfortable. “Mina got... scared. After Paul was born. Like, she cried a lot, and called her dad a lot, and I had no idea what to do. I was terrified too, but for whole different reasons, and I think maybe she felt like I didn’t get it. And you know, I probably didn’t, it’s true.” 

“You think it was a postpartum thing?”

Marco makes a vague, unknowing gesture with his hands, his lips pressed into a thin line. “I don’t have any idea what it was. All I know is that one day near the end of summer, I woke up, and she was gone.”

“Wait, waitwait,” Jean blurts, scooting closer. “Like, _gone_?”

“Gone girl,” Marco replies lamely. “She left me a letter that said she didn’t think she could be a good mother to Paul, or a good wife to me, and that was that for Marco and Mina. I found out, like, months later that she actually transferred out of UCLA and into some other school a good ways north. Far enough away that I didn’t really have any hope of chasing her, even if I had wanted to.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah.” Rubbing his palm over his cheek, Marco hums contemplatively, then murmurs, “You know, now that you mention it, maybe it _was_ a postpartum thing. She had been acting so weird a few days before she left, and she didn’t sound anything like herself in the letter, let alone what she’s like now. It was kind of scary, if I’m honest with you.”

Jean leans back against the arm of the couch with a shaky exhale, trying to take all that in. “Kind of _really_ scary,” he mumbles, at which Marco nods again. 

“My mom helped out a lot, thank god,” he continues, his posture relaxing somewhat. “I was a twenty-one-year-old high school dropout, man, I didn’t know the first damn thing about babies. I dunno what I would’ve done if my mom hadn’t picked me up off the floor.” Lacing his fingers behind his head again, Marco clicks his tongue a few times, his eyes wandering slowly across the ceiling. “So, yeah. That’s how it was. I raised Paul with my mom’s help until he was old enough to follow me around on his own, and then last... February? I got a call from her asking me if I wanted to try again.”

Sucking on his lips slightly, Jean blinks at Marco and asks, “And you said?”

“Yikes,” Marco hisses, squinting over at Jean again. “It wasn’t good. Like I said, bad place, bad time.”

“Ah.” Jean nibbles on the tip of his thumb, willing to let that topic rest if Marco drops it.

“Yeah. Yikes. But once I was done crying, I actually did start thinking about it. It took a while, but it eventually started sounding like a good idea. She’d call me every now and then, ask me how he was, how I was, all that. Ask if I’d reconsidered. And eventually, I did. And now here I am.”

“Here you are,” Jean repeats softly. “Wow, dude.”

“Yup.” Marco runs his hands through his hair, seemingly unconcerned for the way it leaves his bangs standing on ends slightly. “I love Paul. Like, I’d do anything for that kid in a heartbeat. Take a bullet, twelve bullets, raise the dead, anything.” Pausing to take a deep breath, Marco tilts his head back and looks at the ceiling again, then murmurs, “But I’m not sure I can ever love Mina again. Not after the way she dropped us both.” Marco clears his throat then, glancing cautiously at Jean. “Like, I totally get that if her brain and her hormones or whatever madness was twisting her arm, she could only do so much, but.”

“Oh, right, right,” Jean blurts, unwilling to let Marco think that he’s judging him for how he feels about Mina. “No, dude, I get you.”

“Yeah.” Marco swallows and nods, his knee bouncing again. “She booked it for, like, six years. I’m still kind of wounded.”

“Doubt anyone would blame you.”

Marco nods again, then settles back into the couch, idly sucking on his lips as he fidgets with the hem of his hoodie. Jean, meanwhile, is still struggling to process all of that. He’d suspected that it was an ugly situation at some point, but even so, that’s more than a little brutal.

“Mina’s a really nice girl,” Marco mumbles after a while. “Like, _super_ nice. She’ll be a great wife to someone someday. A great mother to their kids, too, if she gets help. I just... I don’t want that someone to be me.” He sighs softly, then shrugs and says, “If she’s into it, I would really like to do split parenting with her for Paul. Loads of families do it, like if the parents are divorced or whatever. I think it’d be good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Laughing softly, Marco glances briefly at Jean, then murmurs, “I think we’re starting to get used to it here, anyway.”

Jean hums warmly, reaching over to give Marco’s shoulder a friendly pat. “Maybe one day we’ll get used to you, too.”

“Oh, I hope so.” Running his hands down his face, Marco lets his eyes slide contently closed, his restless fidgeting finally ceasing. “I really hope so.”

With nearly all of his pressing questions answered, Jean finds himself relaxing back against the arm of the couch again, satisfied to just lie sprawled on the couch in Marco’s company for now. Anything else can wait for another time, if at all. 

After a good few minutes, Marco groans quietly, slapping around for his phone again to check the time. “Jeez,” he mumbles, squinting into the light for a moment before he stuffs it back into his pocket. “It’s like, four thirty in the morning now.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” Marco reaches over and grabs Jean’s ankle, giving it a lazy rattle. “You gotta open the shop tomorrow?”

“Hell no,” Jean grumbles, “It’s _Sunday_. I’m not doing shit-diddly.”

“Nice.”

“You?”

Marco hums, then shakes his head, licking his lips again before he sighs, “My day off.”

“Cool,” Jean replies. “You’re staying here, then.”

“What, really?” Sitting up somewhat, Marco blinks widely at Jean, obviously struggling against sleep. 

Snorting loudly, Jean pushes at Marco’s thigh with his foot and quirks an eyebrow at him. “Yes, dope. You’re drunk and sleepy, and your bed is a _floor_. Stay.”

“Oh. Okay.” Marco interrupts himself with an enormous yawn, stretching his long legs out as much as the coffee table will allow. “Oof, yeah, okay. Couch sounds good.”

Jean fiddles with the couch cushion again, waffling just a little. “You can sleep on the bed, ‘f you want.”

“Nah,” the brunette replies quickly, “I couldn’t kick you out. Couch is fine.”

Shrugging tightly, Jean pulls himself to his feet, taking a moment to squeeze his eyes shut and stretch his tired body out before he quietly suggests, “Bed’s pretty big.”

Marco blinks up at him, the gears in his head turning and turning, then clicking almost audibly. “ _Oh_ , like. Oh.”

“Yes, _oh_ ,” Jean grumps, crossing his arms as he turns his nose up. “All the blankets are piled on my bed, and I’m not sharing, so.” He pauses briefly, then throws Marco a guilty look and mutters, “I mean, unless you really want the couch. Just messing with you. You can have blankets.”

Grinning widely, Marco leans his elbows on his knees and snickers, “You’re fine, jeez. Sharing the bed sounds good. I haven’t slept on a _bed_ bed since L.A., so I’m not gonna stare twice at that offer.”

Jean blinks widely at Marco, vaguely hearing his own cranky voice from the second time they ever met, before he sniffs loudly and tries to pretend he’s not turning bright red. “Glad to see you learned your lesson,” he mumbles finally, in an effort to salvage some of his cool. When Marco just chuckles, Jean huffs and turns on his heel, speeding off down the hall and into his bedroom without another word.

He manages to strip his pants off and wiggle under the mountain of blankets before Marco catches up, thankfully. He turns onto his side, his back toward Marco as the brunette tracks him down and joins him, and he definitely doesn’t listen to the ruffling of Marco’s clothes in an effort to figure out how many layers they’ve got left between them. The bed dips under Marco’s weight, springs squeaking slightly, but it settles again quickly, leaving nothing but the quiet sound of rain pattering against Jean’s windows.

As usual, Jean takes a while to fall asleep, but he hadn’t expected anything less. While he’s waiting for his brain to shut off, he listens to the deep, steady sound of Marco’s breath, trying to match it himself to see if it’ll put him to sleep any faster. It doesn’t, but it’s certainly relaxing, which is a start.

He spends a long time listening to the rain, playing with the little folds in his sheets, thinking lazily about his day off tomorrow, and he has no idea how much time has passed since he laid down, but it’s certainly long enough for Marco’s soft voice to be startling, as rough and sleepy as it is.

“Hey, Jean?”

“Jeez,” Jean huffs, rolling onto his back so he can throw Marco a dirty look. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Mm, in and out. I was just thinking.”

“Well, stop it and go to sleep.”

Marco snickers quietly, then scoots closer under the blankets, murmuring, “You don’t even want to know what I was thinking about?”

“Puppy dog tails, I’m sure.” Jean feels Marco shake his head more than he sees it. Sighing to himself, Jean rolls over again, now facing Marco in the dark, and he really tries not to think about that at all. “Fine. What were you thinking about instead of sleeping, Marco?”

“You.”

Jean’s heart skips a beat. Or forty. Maybe he’s in cardiac arrest, he’s not really sure. “O-oh,” he chokes out eventually, doing his best to swallow his heart again.

“Mhm.” Marco sighs quietly, shifting a hair closer, then breathes, “How did you know you were gay?”

Groaning raggedly, Jean slaps a hand over his face and grumbles, “You wanna know that _now_?”

“I think so.”

“God, Marco,” Jean wheedles, taking his time squishing and rearranging the pillow under his head while he thinks. “I don’t know... I think some part of you always knows, somewhere in there. Some people deal with it, but sometimes you squash it down for whatever reason, you know? Because it scares you or because the world is dangerous or any other reason. It’s always there, though. I mean, it’s a part of you, as much as any other part. For me, I figured out pretty early on who I was most interested in kissing, and just sort of ran with it. It’s worked out okay for me so far.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

Marco hums softly, pondering that for a long moment. “I see...”

Rolling his eyes, Jean snorts and squishes his pillow some more, grumbling, “Satisfied?”

There’s a brief pause before Marco whispers his reply.

“Not yet.”

Before Jean can ask what the hell that means, Marco’s shuffling closer, and Jean’s heart is crammed right back up in his throat. His voice fails him entirely when Marco’s breath puffs out over his lips, half an inch away or less, and suddenly his whole body’s _aching_ again, trembling with the urge to kiss Marco, to be kissed by him, to hold him tight and never, ever let go, not as long as it’s dark and warm under the blankets, as long as Marco lingers willingly in Jean’s space.

The first soft brush of Marco’s lips against his is _electric_. So gentle, and _so_ cautious, but it still hits Jean like lightning, sparking between their lips and leaving him starstruck, craving more before the moment has even passed. Jean’s breath shudders out weakly when Marco does pull away, his eyes squeezed shut and his heart pounding, his body so alive with noise that he almost misses Marco’s sheepish little chuckle.

“Now I am, I think.”

Jean chokes out a mute laugh, still struggling to breathe right. “A-are you?”

Humming deeply, Marco shifts even closer, his warmth flooding over Jean’s body in soothing waves. “Maybe not.”

“Well, thank god,” Jean wheezes, before he moves forward and kisses Marco too, and again and a few more times, pressing forward without realizing it until he and Marco are wrapped tight around each other, until their kisses start melting together, lasting longer and burning hotter the closer they hold each other.

Jean’s not entirely sure who deepens the kiss, or who slips his tongue out against the other’s lips, or who lets out a soft, shivering exhale at the feeling and eagerly meets him in kind. All he knows is that he’s _kissing_ Marco, and it is a thousand times more fantastic than he could have possibly hoped for, between his hands in Marco’s soft, soft hair, and Marco’s strong arms wrapped tight around his waist, and Marco’s lips and teeth and tongue and _everything_ , everything Marco wants to give him. He lets out a breathless whimper and wraps his arms around Marco’s neck, pulling him deeper into the kiss, and Marco returns the sound in a low, rumbling groan and fists his hands in Jean’s loose shirt, then slowly, cautiously slides one underneath, his fingers hot and _so_ good reverently brushing along Jean’s bare skin, dancing up the curve of his spine.

At some point in the brief space between long, brainless kisses, Marco pulls back just enough to breathe Jean’s name in a deep whisper, a soft, questioning plea, and if that wasn’t enough to set Jean’s head spinning, Marco shifts his hips forward then, just enough that Jean can feel how fucking _hard_ he is in his boxers. Jean can’t help but give a shivering moan at the hot, solid weight now pressing and rubbing against his hip, at knowing that _he_ brought that about, he and Marco and their lips and their shaking bodies. It’s laid so close to his own arousal, too, which is straining for attention against his tight underwear, close enough that if he just hitched his thigh up over Marco’s hip—if he rolled his hips up and a little to the left, they could—

Before he can even begin to follow that enticing train of thought, his mind clears enough to see the immediate flaws in his half-brained plans, and Jean’s deep-seated misfortune for firsts rears its ugly head once more.

Groaning miserably, Jean pulls away from Marco’s lips and leans his head back to gasp, “Shit, M-Marco, wait, wait...”

“I-is this okay? Are you—”

“I don’t have any condoms.”

Marco pauses at that, but the way his cock twitches against Jean’s stomach totally gives away where his brain went. “O-oh. Oh.”

“Yeah.” Swallowing heavily, Jean takes a deep, steadying breath and rolls onto his back, regretfully peeling himself out of Marco’s strong embrace, as much as he’s screaming on the inside for the loss. He throws one arm over his eyes, doing his best to breathe deeply and think about literally anything but Marco’s dick. He feels Marco roll onto his back as well, close enough that he can still feel his warmth, but not so close as to tempt either of them.

“Well, um,” Marco says quietly, shifting slightly and lacing his fingers atop the blankets. “Maybe it’s better this way.”

Jean peers out at him from under his elbow, his nose wrinkled, not that Marco can see the look he’s being given. “How’s that?”

Marco sighs slowly, then pulls the blankets around until he can slide one leg out and bend his knee up. Must be too hot. “I should talk to Mina,” he mumbles finally, pulling Jean’s attention back to more important matters. “I need to make sure she and I are on the same page about things, you know? Like, I’m pretty sure we are, but I just want to make it clear.” He pauses to play with a fold on the blanket, clearly mulling over his next words. “A-and, um. I think we should talk, too.”

Raising his eyebrows, Jean shifts his arm above his head so he can see Marco more clearly, trying to ignore the bad feeling starting to twist in his stomach. “About what?”

The way Marco exhales, shaky and hesitant, certainly doesn’t help Jean’s nervousness. He crosses his arms tightly over his chest, trying not to assume the worst, but it’s a fairly hard habit to break and Jean isn’t exactly known for his blinding optimism.

“I just, um,” Marco hums, fidgeting more. “I just want to know what your expectations are.”

Jean huffs out a sigh, not meaning for it to sound as aggravated as it does. “This had better not be where you tell me you’re just curious.”

Marco looks over at him, a movement Jean feels more than he sees. He stares at Jean for a while, and Jean struggles to squash down his paranoias about straight men and how much of a pain in the ass they are, because more than anything else, he wants Marco to be _different_. Jean’s too old for bullshit.

“I _am_ curious,” Marco finally mumbles, sounding small and hurt enough that Jean doesn’t feel the urge to immediately remove him from the bed. “That’s exactly what I am.” He rolls toward Jean then, shyly reaching over until his fingers brush Jean’s elbow. Hesitating a second longer, he lets his hand trail down the blonde’s forearm until he finds his hand, still tense with nerves. Marco rests his hand there for a moment before he curls his fingers around Jean’s narrow wrist and gently eases his hand out so he can lace their fingers together loosely.

Lips still pursed, Jean allows Marco to take his hand, but he makes no moves to make it easier on him. Marco seems okay with that, though, the same way he’s always been about Jean’s loud grouchiness, and once he’s holding Jean’s hand, he pulls the blonde’s knuckles to his lips and brushes a soft, sweet kiss over them. The gesture is more than a little effective at melting Jean’s cold shoulder.

“I’m curious about you,” Marco mumbles against Jean’s fingers, his breath warm and somehow soothing. “I’m curious about what book you were reading that first time I came into your shop. I’m curious about when you find the time to rotate out your stock when every time I see you, you look like you’re half asleep.” 

Jean snorts at that, not bothering to fight the bright flush blazing across his face. He can feel Marco’s soft smile against his knuckles, which just makes it that much harder to push him away.

“I’m curious about a lot of things, Jean,” he murmurs finally, leaning up on his elbow so he can look down at Jean’s face, or what he can see of it in the dark. “I have been for a while. About you, your shop, your life...”

Choking slightly, Jean turns away from him, too flustered to even imagine eye contact. “Dude, shut _up._ ”

Marco chuckles warmly at that, then bends to brush his lips against Jean’s cheek, gentle and sweet. “Being curious about how you kiss was, um. A pretty recent thing. But for the last few days, it’s been all I can think about.” He leans his forehead against Jean’s temple with a low sigh, his breath fluttering maddeningly along Jean’s jaw. “You’re _really_ cute, you know.”

Again, rather than reply with any sort of grace, Jean huffs and squirms, then wheezes, “And your curiosity for _other_ things?”

Breathing an awkward laugh at that, Marco shakes his head lightly, and Jean likes to imagine that he’s blushing too. “That’s extremely recent. Like, last ten minutes recent.”

“How innocent of you.”

Marco shrugs at that, clearing his throat softly. “I mean, I’m pretty straight. Well, I was. I dunno what I am now. I just know that it includes you.” Leaning up again, Marco presses another soft kiss against Jean’s warm cheek, following it up with a brief, affectionate nuzzle that makes Jean’s heart explode in his chest. “So, yeah,” Marco murmurs, “I think we should talk about that before anything else happens. Maybe, um. Over dinner. Or something.”

Jean tries his best not to make any sort of embarrassed noise, but every sound he tries to squash escapes in a rather pathetic whimper. Marco just laughs, though, softly enough that Jean doesn’t feel like he’s being laughed _at._ Which is a nice feeling. A very nice feeling.

“Can’t even remember the last date I went on,” Jean manages finally, his free hand twisting in the sheets just for something to do.

Nodding slowly, Marco murmurs, “You seemed a little lonely. I was curious about that, too.”

“Alright, alright, Curious George,” Jean huffs, rolling toward Marco and twisting to bury his face in his neck, mostly just to dodge that topic.

Marco hums, seemingly having the good grace to drop the subject, before he slings his free arm over Jean’s waist and gathers him close, dropping soft kisses into mussed blonde hair. “So, um,” he mumbles, nudging his nose against Jean’s ear. “I’m gonna talk to Mina? And Paul, probably. And I’ll report back to you then.” He sighs warmly when Jean nods, squeezing their twined fingers where they’re stuck somewhat awkwardly between their chests, before he clears his throat and says, “For now, I’m, uh. I’m gonna go sleep on the couch.”

Jean pulls back out of Marco’s neck then, blinking up at him for a moment. Marco shifts stiffly, breathing a sheepish laugh, and when Jean gets it, he snickers at Marco’s expense, like he has any room to talk.

“Go for it,” Jean sighs finally, pulling himself once more out of Marco’s embrace. “Take some blankets, ‘s cold out there.”

“’Kay.” Marco hesitates for a moment, then gently runs his knuckles down Jean’s cheek and leans down to brush their lips together once more, his content hum rumbling sweetly against Jean’s lips. “Okay, okay,” he mumbles again, rolling over and swinging his legs out of bed with a groan.

Jean lets him steal the top blanket, bidding the brunette an amused goodnight as he ambles awkwardly out of the room, which earns him a playful grumble.

Once the sounds of Marco settling on the couch have filtered out into silence once more, Jean rolls back onto his side and grabs the pillow Marco had been using, and he feels no shame whatsoever in burying his face in it and clinging to it until he falls asleep.

\--

Aside from a quick cup of coffee and some shy flirting the next morning, Jean doesn’t hear from Marco until Monday, which is more than mildly worrisome to him. 

He’s just in the middle of counting all the ways things could have gone horribly wrong when the bell above Eulalie’s front door chimes happily. Jean looks up from where he’s crouched beside a bucket of bright purple asters, poking his head up enough to see over the wall of roses between himself and the door. He sees Marco looking around for him, scratching the back of his head, and ducks back behind the display while his heart spasms for a few seconds.

Once he’s not so much in danger of falling over, Jean stands up straight, wiping his hands on his apron. “Hey.”

“Oh, I didn’t see you there,” Marco says softly, a shy little smile quirking the corners of his lips. Jean’s heart rebels again. “You have time to talk?”

Taking a deep breath, Jean nods, gesturing to the stool as he moves past Marco to hang up his ‘back in 30’ sign and lock the door. Marco’s settled comfortably behind the counter when Jean comes to join him, hopping up on the counter in front of him and crossing his legs idly. 

Marco nods a few times, almost seeming lost for words, before he runs a hand through his hair and says, “So I talked to Mina.” 

If Jean had any words, he’s sure he’d reply. As it is, his heart is kind of lodged in his throat, so he just nods carefully, his hands moving to fidget with his apron’s pockets. Marco watches him for a second, then slowly reaches over and hooks his index finger around Jean’s, as if testing his reaction. After a moment, he pulls Jean’s hand toward him, tenderly running his thumbs over Jean’s bony knuckles without concern for any sticky sap that may linger on his skin.

“You have really nice hands, Jean,” Marco finally blurts, swallowing heavily once he does. 

“Oh my god, dude,” Jean groans.

“O-oh, sorry,” he replies, “Right. Focus.” Sitting up straight, Marco keeps his hold on Jean’s hand, his warm fingers rubbing soft, idle circles into his skin. “I talked everything out with Mina, and she’s okay with things, and glad to have some sort of resolution. But, she also made some good points.”

“Okay...?”

Marco sighs, his gaze falling to Jean’s hand again for a moment. “Um. Well, to start with, I’m still gonna live with her for now. For Paul’s sake, so he has time to get settled and all.” Taking a deep breath, Marco squints one eye up at Jean and continues, “And that’s another thing. I’m a package deal with my son. There’s no separating us.”

Raising an eyebrow, Jean just shrugs at that, which seems to baffle Marco somewhat. “I know that, man,” Jean says bluntly. “That’s how it’s been since I met you. I wouldn’t have been so into you if I was turned off by you having a kid.” Sniffing slightly, Jean sits up straight and wiggles his fingers in Marco’s. “What kind of person would expect that of you?”

Exhaling slowly, Marco shrugs limply, mumbling, “You’d be surprised.”

“Well, that’s shitty,” Jean replies. 

“I know it.” Breathing a long, clearly relieved sigh, Marco ducks to press his forehead against the back of Jean’s hand, tension visibly melting out of his posture. “Well, _that’s_ a big weight off my shoulders.”

Jean smiles softly, lightly resting his free hand on the back of Marco’s head so he can ruffle his hair soothingly. “Anything else?”

Marco shrugs again, then sits up and gives Jean a crooked grin. “Mina has expressly forbidden any canoodling in her house, but that’s because she thinks I’m unattractively shmoopy when I’m being romantic.”

“Her loss,” Jean snorts, averting his gaze so he doesn’t get distracted by the literal _twinkle_ in Marco’s big, pretty eyes. 

“So, yeah,” Marco continues after a moment, brushing his lips across Jean’s knuckles. “We’re still working out the parenting thing, so that might be a little hectic for a few months. I’m sure I’ll keep you updated. Otherwise, it’s all green lights. Paul gave his approval, too.”

Snickering loudly, Jean combs Marco’s bangs down into his eyes and laughs, “Sounds good, captain.”

“Cool.” His grin widening, bangs still curling into his eyes, Marco stands up and moves closer to Jean, resting one hand on his bony knee as he catches his lip between his teeth. “So, uh, can I take you to dinner tonight?”

“ _Yes,_ dummy,” Jean groans, pressing one hand over Marco’s big dumb adorable face. “If you can figure out where the restaurants are.”

“Oh, no, I only know the one across the street...”

As his fingers slide down Marco’s face, Jean squints thoughtfully, at which the brunette hums curiously. “I’m thinking,” he mumbles, lightly tapping his fingers against Marco’s lips. “D’you know who Thomas Wagner is?”

Marco blinks widely, then nods with a muffled, “I’m pretty sure Mina’s, like, in love with the dude.”

A wide grin spreads across Jean’s face. “Oh, good. So’s Thom.”

Laughing warmly, Marco catches Jean’s drift, clearly on board with the matchmaking plot. That’s something to discuss later, though. 

For now, Marco leans closer, nudging his nose against Jean’s with a slow, content sigh. He curls his fingers under Jean’s chin, tilting his face up slightly, and when Jean leans forward and closes the space between them, Marco breathes a warm hum and lets his eyes slide closed, tilting into the kiss as his fingers thread into Jean’s hair, his thumb stroking over his flushed ear.

Jean loses track of the time in Marco’s kisses, in the way their lips feel pressed against each other, in how gently Marco’s hands hold him, but right now, it doesn’t matter. They have all the time in the world to be curious about each other during the quiet season.


End file.
